Varavara Rao’s Diatribe Against Dr. JP Unwarranted: Lok Satta

The Lok Satta Party today strongly condemned Revolutionary ‘Democratic’ Front (RDF) President Varavara Rao’s diatribe against Lok Satta Party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan.

Lok Satta Party Working President D. V. V. S. Varma in a media statement pointed out that Mr. Varavara Rao clutched at a distorted report in a newspaper to make the unwarranted attack.

The newspaper distorted Dr. JP’s oft-repeated contention that the corrupt are more dangerous than terrorists by substituting the word terrorists with naxalites.

Mr. Varma said that Dr. JP had never referred to naxalites in the context of his campaign against corruption. Mr. Varavara Rao went by the distorted report which depicted Dr. JP as saying that Mr. Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is more dangerous than naxalites.

Mr. Varma clarified that the Lok Satta Party has never equated naxalites with terrorists. On the contrary, Dr. JP has many times declared that non-violent naxalism is his credo. The Lok Satta Party believes that Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy is merely a symptom of the rotten and corrupt state of affairs in Andhra Pradesh and that both the Congress and the TDP are partners in the politics of plunder. The Lok Satta’s focus is on institutional changes rather than individuals.

Mr. Varma said that Mr. Varavara Rao’s comment that two World Bank trained individuals – Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Dr. JP – had made India with 120-crore people toe its line betrays his political bankruptcy.

The Lok Satta Party has always evaluated policy prescriptions of any institution including the World Bank on the touchstone of public interest. The question is not whether the cat is black or white but whether it can catch the mice.

Mr. Varavara Rao’s snide that Dr. JP is conversant with lawful looting of public resources betrays the levels to which he is ready to stoop.

In fact it was Dr. JP who exposed with facts and figures the systematic squander of public resources in the name of ports, SEZs and ports in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly. It was again the Lok Satta which was instrumental in getting the 2-G licenses involving loot of finite resource cancelled by the Supreme Court.

Mr. Varavara Rao who views the Assembly as a piggery or a haven for chatterboxes is not concerned with such exposes.

Mr. Varma counseled Mr. Varavara Rao to realize that by indulging in unfair criticism against the Lok Satta, which is committed to protecting constitutional values and rule of law, fighting corruption and empowering people, is harming the interests of the poor and the downtrodden.