'Not worried over anti-national label'

A day after the CPM claimed that a group of “right-wing” people vandalised its office and some threat calls were also made to its top leader, the Left parts on Monday said they were not worried of being labelled as “anti-nationals” and will fight out all such attacks.

The Left parties also condemned the attack on the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) members in a city court premises, demanding “immediate arrest” of all those involved in perpetrating the incident. Some of the journalists, who had gone there for the coverage of JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar’s production in court by the police, were manhandled and thrashed in the incident.

 The Janata Dal-United (JD-U) also came out in support of the Left parties.It condemned the incident of vandalism at the CPM office and threat calls to the lLeft party’s general secretary Sitaram Yechury, saying they were attack on the freedom of speech.  

The JD-U also likened the entire situation including crackdown on Left-backed students union’s members of the Jawaharlal Nehru University on charges of sedition to a “new kind of Emergency” in the country

“All this (threat calls), we are prepared to face, we are not worried. We are not worried about being labelled as anti-national. We are prepared to face this and we will fight it out," CPM leader Prakash Karat told reporters.

Yechury launched a stinging attack on the “right-wing outfits” for labelling Left parties as “anti-national” forces.

Posting a series of tweets on the microblogging social networking site, the CPM leader said, “There can not be a bigger farce than Godse-worshippers putting out certificates on nationalism.”

He also condemned the attack on Left-backed JNU Student Union students on the premises of the Patiala House Court, wondering what was the police deployed in the court premises was doing at the time of incident.

  Karat said the threat calls and the attack on CPM headquarters were “responses by right-wing outfits” to the Left party’s firm stand against assault on the students’ community in the JNU and “government-sponsored imposition of Hindutva ideology” on the campuses.

“We are not accepting their definition of nationalism. So, obviously, those forces are angry with us and this is what they try to do at our office,” Karat said.