The lead editorial in the latest issue of CPM mouthpiece People’s Democracy concentrates its energy on attacking the BJP and its prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani for “double speak” on the Indo-US nuclear deal and the role of public sector units.

Quoting the BJP’s vision document for infrastructure development that says the NDA will strengthen public sector, it reminds the BJP that it had established a separate ministry for disinvestment and proceeded to try and decimate the public sector systematically when it was in power. Now, the BJP is saying that the public sector is India’s national pride and the NDA government will strengthen the public sector, and enable it to make its fullest contribution to infrastructure expansion in India. “Indeed, a very convenient methodology to renege from its past position! More importantly, this is a crass cynical attempt to woo the votes of a vast section of Indians that support and depend upon the public sector,” the edit says.

On the nuclear deal, the editorial says Advani had in November 2007 said that the 123 agreement is unacceptable to the nation because it is deeply detrimental to India’s vital and long-term interests and if the NDA gets a mandate, it will renegotiate the deal to see that all the adverse provisions in it are either deleted or this treaty is rejected completely.

Now he is saying that government is a continuing matter and treaty signed by an earlier government cannot be easily disregarded. “Leave alone rejecting the treaty ‘completely’, there is no mention of even an effort to ‘renegotiate’ the treaty. The word ‘renegotiate’ does not even appear in the voluminous manifesto that the BJP had issued earlier,” it says.

... contd.