Press statement issued by BJP National Spokesperson and MP
Shri Prakash Javadekar

1. CPM is enacting Nandigram II with more cruelty and brutality by spreading terror to influence the Panchayat polls scheduled on 11th May, 2008 to legitimise their earlier capture of Nandigram. In this episode of Nandigram II, police is acting in tandem with CPM cadres while State Eection Commission has pleaded its helplessness to arrest the violence and act tough and the CRPF is also not allowed to operate. The opposition candidates and voters are being mercilessly beaten by the CPM cadres and also the police when they approach them with their complaints. BJP demands that the polls should either be put off or should be conducted peacefully in the presence of armed forces.

More than 2,000 people who have refused to tow CPM line have been forced out of their home. Areas of Sonchura, Samasbagh, Gokulnagar and Kalicharanpur are wearing a deserted look. The people who do not have faith in government agencies and who have relatives nearby, are now taken shelter at their places. More than 2,000 voters have been left without voter ID, as their cards have been snatched by CPM cadres. BJP candidate in Sonchura Mr. Jaydeb Mandal is hospitalised after he was beaten up mercilessly. CPM cadres threw bombs on the house of another BJP candidate Mrs. Aarti Mandal.

The CPM terror was horrifically manifested when a woman from Nandigram was stripped naked and beaten up in public. The terror is apparent at other places also. On more than 4,000 seats, CPM did not allow opposition candidates to fill up the forms by hooliganism by the cadres.

BJP strongly condemns CPM's Stalinist terror tactics.

2. BJP rejects observations by Bush administration and UPA leaders citing various superficial reasons like change of food habits and increased demand from poorer section as being responsible for price rise. Actually, per capita food grain consumption is 1048 Kg in USA while it is merely 178 Kg in India.

BJP also rejects observation by Bush administration as ridiculous regarding global rise in oil prices because of rising demand from India and China. Here also figures narrate a different story. Indian consumption is merely 2 million barrels per day while USA consumes 20 million barrels per day. On per capita basis USA consumes 40 times more oil than India. USA wants to gloss over the factors like future trading and cartelisation in oil trade.

(Shyam Jaju)
Office Incharge