The Manmohan Singh government has won the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha but the entire country has witnessed how parliamentary democracy has been subverted. Reports of bribery, intimidation and horse-trading have been proved true by the cross-voting and abstentions engineered by the Congress and the Samajwadi Party. It is by such means that they got a majority. In this connection, the tape submitted by a television channel about a bribery episode should be made public.
The Congress leadership is mistaken if it considers this vote as one that has provided legitimacy to the government. The moral authority of the government has been compromised. The debate in the Lok Sabha has shown up the sharp division on the nuclear deal. This is no mandate for going ahead with the deal.
The Left parties will continue the struggle against the Indo-US nuclear deal. They will step up their opposition to the anti-people policies of the Congress-led government and strive to build the widest movement against the failure of the government to tackle price rise, the problems of the farmers and the rural poor due to the agrarian crisis. The Left parties will join hands with other like-minded parties to take up these issues.
The Left parties decided to extend their full support to the call of the Central trade unions for a general strike on August 20, 2008. They appealed to all sections of the working people to participate and join the strike.
Sd/-
Prakash Karat
General Secretary, CPI(M)
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A.B. Bardhan
General Secretary, CPI
Debabrata Biswas
General Secretary, AIFB
T.J. Chandrachoodan
General Secretary, RSP
