Patel agitation punctured Gujarat model balloon: Yechury

CP(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Thursday said the Patel agitation in Gujarat has exposed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim over the success of the state’s so-called all-inclusive model.

Addressing a press conference here, Yechury, 63, said the Centre and state government were using force to quell the agitation instead of negotiating with the protesters.

He said merely appealing is meaningless for agitations by other communities like the Jats and Gujjars in North India remain unanswered, adding that the Gujarat government deployed the Army to tackle the disturbance now, unlike in 2002 when communal riots had spread in the state.

Yechury, who took over from Prakash Karat in April, said his party had made its stand clear in the past on the recommendations of the  Mandal Commission and the poorest and weaker sections of the Other Backward Classes should be protected. The commission was set up in the late 1970s.

He said all parties, including the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (predecessor of today’s BJP), had agreed that economically backward classes without a creamy layer should also be protected.

‘Modi regime worse’

Criticising PM Modi, Yechury said things have become worse in the last one year and the livelihood of poor people has taken a beating. He said the prime minister has made several foreign trips since taking over in May last year but nothing has materialised despite promise of foreign investments worth thousands of crores.

He said the Sensex has gone down and the Modi government exhibited the paralysis, that the previous UPA government had shown in a decade.

The Left leader also accused the NDA government of sharpening communal polarisation in the country, adding its releasing the census data on religious groups recently is only  meant to reap benefits in the upcoming Bihar election.

Yechury said the NDA government failed completely to address the scams and overlooked its own stand on suspending or removing tainted officials and ministers.