Seeking to turn the tables on the Opposition on the issue of scams, the Congress on Sunday launched a broadside against the BJP and CPI(M) suggesting that the two were no different when it comes to corruption.
It also criticised the Telugu Desam Party, the Janata Dal (U) and the Biju Janata Dal for working in collaboration with the BJP in opposing the Congress and its allies in the UPA. “The BJP has a history of double standards and double speak on issues of serious corruption involving senior most leadership and occupants of highest offices including chief ministers and ministers, the resolution said that the main Opposition party remained in a state of denial or stubbornly sought to divert attention by indulging in “political theatrics”.
“The BJP has demonstrated its moral bankruptcy and political hypocrisy; so too parties like the CPI(M) and others who have actively indulged in corruption in the states under their rule,” the draft political resolution said.
Noting that the UPA-1 government was supported by the Left Front, which subsequently withdrew support, the resolution said that the Left parties “thereafter have been working in tandem with the BJP in opposing the Congress and the UPA.”
The resolution further attacked the saffron party saying “it is unfortunate that the main Opposition party in our country today has given an open call to MLAs belonging to other parties to cross the floor and various methods have been adopted to defeat the very purpose of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution on anti-defection. The BJP has unleashed a flood of corruption in the political arena just to grab power. This needs to be halted with a firm hand with political parties introspecting and engaging in comprehensive electoral reform,” it said.
The party also mounted attack on the Left for the “cycle of violence” in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura where the latter is in power. “The Congress emphatically rejects all attempts to perpetrate a cycle of violence for political and electoral advantages by political parties,” the party said in the resolution.
The party resolution also expressed concern over “violence and intimidation” in poll-bound West Bengal, where the Congress-Trinamul alliance is confident of wresting power from the Left. “The Congress is alarmed about the increased instances of attempts to control and capture areas and zones by violent means and intimidation. Politics based on ‘capture and recapture’ of areas and attempts to create ‘safe zones’ by violence and physical intimidation against political opponents and general masses of population must be defeated,” it said, alluding to the violence in Lalgarh area of West Bengal.
“Coerced displacement of people from their political persuasion and belief cannot be allowed. The Congress condemns this politics,” it said.