Coimbatore: Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) General Secretary, yesterday blamed the Election Commission of favouring the BJP and thus delaying the announcement of Lok Sabha election dates.
Taking part in a public meeting, Yechury said the commission had announced the date as 5 March for general elections in 2014, but EC was now delaying the announcement for BJP’s poll campaign. He further alleged that the ruling party in the Centre was using public money for its campaign.
“Modi says he is the Chowkidar (Watchman) of the country. But this chowkidar has failed to protect the country and made it worse than ever,” Yechury said.
On the IAF’s air strikes in Pakistan, he accused Modi of politicising the issue for electoral gains. He however lauded the Indian Air Force for their work. He further compared the terror attacks during the Modi and UPA rule. In 10 years of UPA rule there were 109 terror attacks, whereas within 5 years of Modi’s tenure there has been 626 attacks. During UPA rule 139 soldiers were killed in such attacks and its 483 under the Modi’s.
Taking a dig at Modi’d ‘Chowkidar’ remark, Yechury claimed “this Chowkidar’ failed to protect the nation. Nearly 1.10 crore youth remained unemployed last year despite being promised of jobs by Modi, he pointed out. Lashing out at Modi’s demonitization and GST he said a large number of small and medium scale industries were forced to close down.