| Criticises the BJP for trying to convert Orissa into “communal laboratory” |
Calls upon BJD to provide secular alternative
“There is no compromise on core values”
BANGALORE: Appreciating the decision of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) to snap ties with the “communal” Bharatiya Janata Party, the former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda has extended an invitation to BJD leader and Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to join hands with the proposed third front.
In a letter to Mr. Patnaik, Mr. Gowda called upon the BJD to join hands with the third front to provide a “secular, pro-people, pro-farmer, non-Congress and non-BJP national alternative to the people of this country.”
Coming down heavily on the BJP for trying to convert peaceful Orissa into a “communal laboratory on the lines of Gujarat,” Mr. Gowda said he was happy to note that the Orissa Chief Minister was following in the foot-steps of his father Biju Patnaik with whom he shared a very “close association.”
“It is high time that all like-minded secular forces sink their differences and work together for the toiling under-privileged, downtrodden, exploited and impoverished masses of India,” Mr. Gowda said, before adding that he was looking forward to closely working with Mr. Naveen Patnaik in the coming days.
“When the unfortunate anti-Christian violence took place in Kandhamal last year, I knew that a thoroughly secular gentleman politician like your good self cannot be comfortable with such anti-social and anti-minorities fascist forces for long as was evident from your statements condemning the perpetrators behind the violence and their political and so-called non-political masters,” Mr. Gowda said.
He, however, said he understood the political compulsions under which smaller parties like the BJD and the JD(S) were forced to enter into coalitions with national parties. “But, there are certain core values and principles such as federalism, secularism et al we have inherited, cherished and nurtured through our political lives and when we see such fascist forces trampling on those life-giving values, we do not compromise even if it means losing power or positions, which for us have always been a means to serve the people and not an end in itself,” Mr. Gowda said.
He recalled that his party legislators in Karnataka too were forced to enter into an alliance with the “communal” BJP. “But, when it dawned on us that beneath all their overt commitments to constitutional norms and secularism lay a covert design to ruthlessly tear apart the nation’s secular fabric and turn the State into a communal laboratory, we decided to call it a day,” he said in the letter.
