People's Democracy

The CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury lashed out at the Naidu duo - Chandrababu and Venkaiah - for their disinformation campaign against Lakshmi Sahgal and the left parties. Dr. (Capt.) Sahgal is the best eligible person to be the president of India for all her sacrifice and contribution during the independence movement and thereafter, he asserted.

He was addressing a seminar organised at Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in Hyderabad on June 19, on "Presidential election - Stand of the Left."

Sitaram said that RSS-BJP had played no role at all in our freedom movement. Addressing the Parliament on the occasion of golden jubilee of Quit India Movement, the then president, Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, quoted from the British records that in 1942 the communists, working against the British, were rousing the revolutionary consciousness among the people, reminded Sitaram. It was also mentioned in the British records that the RSS volunteers asked people not to join Quit India movement. Now the sangh parivar forces were trying to make the people forget all that heritage by distorting history, said Sitaram.

During 1962 and later also, the Marxist leaders advocated negotiations with China and the governments, whether of the Congress then or of the BJP now were following the same way. The role of the CPI(M) during the emergency period is well known, he said.

Referring to the reports that the chief minister and TDP president, Chandrababu Naidu, admitted in the cabinet meeting that it was wrong on his part to say that he did not hear of Lakshmi Sahgal, Sitaram remarked that if Naidu had courage he should say the same openly instead of indulging in leakage politics.

Reminding that when the state-sponsored communal terrorism started in Gujarat, the CPI(M) said that Chandrababu Naidu should withdraw his support to the BJP-led NDA government, Sitaram observed that had he done so, the BJP would have been forced to control the violence in Gujarat. Chandrababu has become a partner in the BJP’s politics of attempting to cover up those crimes.

He asserted that the people are sympathetic towards the Left parties and asked the cadres to carry on the massive campaign by all means. Sitaram underlined the importance of carrying on class struggles independently in order to widen the base of mass movements.

M V Narasimha Reddy, member of the central committee of the CPI(M), who presided over the meeting, said behind taunting Lakshmi Sahgal the chief minister Chandrababu Naidu had conspiratorial attitude. " He could not tolerate a women contesting for the office of president of India. He is openly supporting communal forces. He is acting like a flunkey of the imperialists and begging them for his political survival. So Chandrababu does not want the people to know our history of democratic struggles against imperialism, for, if they know, his political survival will be at stake. Andhra played a great role in the independence struggle. Several patriots like Alluri Seetaramaraju, Vuyyala Narasimha Reddy, Kanneganti Hanumanthu and Komaram Bhim sacrificed their lives. More than 4000 comrades sacrificed their lives in the Telangana armed struggle for the sake of "land to the tiller". It is shameful that such a state with a history of fighting against imperialism has a chief minister who is subservient to imperialism," Narasimha Reddy explained. We say salam to Kalam as a great scientist, but we are not prepared to become a gulam, he commented. Lakshmi Sahgal stood for independence struggle, secular values and democracy, he said.