Mangalore : Prakash Karat, General secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has expressed pessimism at the formation of a third front. He said here on Sunday October 27, in a convention on Muslim rights organized by Communist Party of India (Marxist) in association with CPI, DFYI and CITU Dakshina Kannada zone at Shanti Nilaya.
That an anti-communal convention to be held on October 30 in New Delhi was not to seek out possibilities of forming a third front.
“There is no third front now,” he replied to a query on the sidelines of a convention for Muslim rights.
“Around 13 parties will come for the convention, and some want to form a third front. But there has been no progress so far… The convention is only to get together non-Congress secular parties and express our opposition to the rising communalism,” he said.
Mr. Karat believed the convention was all the more relevant now as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had decided to fully back Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate.
At the convention, organised by the local district unit of the party, he said the CPI(M) demanded the immediate implementation of the Sachar Commission report which, among others, suggested 10 per cent reservation for Muslims, sub-plan in the five year plans for minorities.
He also demanded that the communal violence bill – (Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill 2011 be implemented to ensure rehabilitation and compensation for riot victims – most of whom, he felt, were from the minorities.
The party was also making a list of Muslims who have been acquitted in terrorism-related cases after having spent more than five years in jail. This report – tabulated from Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Bihar, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh – would be presented to the President to press for their demands for accountability of security agencies, compensation and rehabilitation of those arrested.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party appeasing the majority, and the Congress using the minorities as vote banks, the actual issues of the Muslim community would persist, he said.
“For the Congress, Muslims represent votes… for the RSS and the BJP, their version of democracy is the rule of the Hindu majority,” said Mr. Karat.
The party also demanded a separate sub-plan for minorities in the five-year Plan, like the one undertaken for the Scheduled Caste Special Component or Tribal Sub-plan.“The poorest and least developed pockets of urban and rural India are also those that are Muslim-dominated. No development happens in these areas,” he said.
Mr. Karat vouched for 10 per cent reservation for Muslims in education and employment. A political consensus – through a constitutional amendment – was needed for this.
Mr. Karat said issues such as cow slaughter, assaults on Muslims talking to Hindu women and patriarchal notions of women as property were being used to whip up communal tensions and further harass minorities.
He cited the example of Muzaffarnagar, where a case of sexual harassment soon turned into communal violence and more than 50 people died and 40,000 people displaced. It is in this background, Mr. Karat said, communal violence bill was required to ensure victims of riots were suitably compensated and rehabilitated.
CPI(M) Karnataka secretary G.V. Sriram Reddy and senior writer Sara Aboobacker, B Madhava, CITU state president; Shariff Rao member of DYFI; Sunil Kumar; J V Sriram Shetty, K Yadav Shetty; Krishna P; Mohjib Rao; K Umesh and others were present on this occasion were present.