Congress the only hope, says Sonia

By Radha Venkatesan

MYLADUTHARAI, FEB. 17 Though undecided on electoral strategy and alliance partners in Tamil Nadu, the Congress president, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, today kick-started the party's campaign for the coming Assembly election at a farmers' rally here, hitting out at the agricultural policies of the Centre and the State Government and projecting the Congress as the only party which could ``assure a better future for Tamil Nadu and the country''.

With the Assembly election round the corner, the people of Tamil Nadu have another opportunity to ``place their trust on the Congress'' for the interests of the farmers, handloom weavers and the fisherfolk were ``uppermost in our minds and hearts'', Ms. Gandhi said at a rally in the grain-bowl of the State.

The Congress, she claimed, was the only party which ``protects the welfare of the poor, promotes harmony and assures a better future for Tamil Nadu and the country''.

While the Pondicherry Chief Minister, Mr. P. Shanmugham, and the TNCC president, Mr. E.V.K.S. Elangovan, threw a veiled barb at the AIADMK, the Congress president, in her half- hour address, chose to focus on agricultural issues rather than local politics.

Urging the Cauvery River Tribunal to ``accelerate'' the process of resolving the water dispute ``amicably to the satisfaction of the farmers of Tamil Nadu'', she lamented that the Cauvery delta farmers hailed as the foodgrain providers for the country, were now suffering from ``serious consequences of neglect'' of agricultural sector by the Government.

Listing out the problems faced by the farmers, weavers and fisherfolk in the State in detail, the Congress leader, without mentioning the ruling DMK, charged that the Tamil Nadu Government had not only failed to provide ``fair and equitable'' procurement prices for paddy but imposed restrictions on the sale of paddy to other States. The Centre had ``done little'' to alleviate the woes of coconut growers in South India who ``suffered grievously'' as the crops had been affected by disease, she said. Though the WTO allowed for raise of import duty on coconut oil to 300 per cent, the Centre had not increased the duty in keeping with the drastic rise in import of coconut oil, she charged.

The sugarcane farmers of Tamil Nadu were ``in a rut'' as the Government had not paid their dues, and increased the procurement price only for cane with ``abnormally high sugar content''.

As for the fisherfolk, Ms. Gandhi charged that the Centre had increased the prices of diesel twice since the last parliamentary election, affecting their livelihood. She assured them that the Congress would strive towards creating a just system ``where your lives are not jeopardised''.

`Swadeshi' chord

She struck a ``swadeshi'' note too, while elaborating the problems of the silk weavers in the State reeling under ``anomalies in taxation and import relaxation''.

Ending her speech on an emotional note, she recalled that Rajiv Gandhi was to address an election rally in Myladuthurai on May 22, 1991, a day before he was assassinated in Sriperumbdur. ``Tragedy overtook all of us.''

Earlier, the Myladuthurai MP, Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyer, handed over petitions containing 1.8 lakh signatures of Cauvery delta farmers to Ms. Gandhi. The Congress MP said he had filed a suit in the Supreme Court for expeditious settlement of the dispute.

In an implicit reference to alliance uncertainties in the Opposition front, the TNCC chief, Mr. Elangovan, said ``thousands had turned up at the rally to see in which direction Ms. Sonia Gandhi had held out her hand''. She was the only leader Tamil Nadu looked up to after Kamaraj, Anna, MGR and Rajiv Gandhi, he said.

The Pondicherry Chief Minister, Mr. Shanmugham, said that huge turnout was a fitting reply to those who had ``taunted and underestimated the Congress' strength''. The party general secretary, Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad, and Pondicherry unit president, Mr. V. Narayanasamy, also participated. Dissident TNCC leaders, Mr. K.V. Thangabalu and Mr. Tindivanam K. Ramamurthy, abstained.

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