Pics: Spoorthi Ullal / Meryick D'Silva
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (DV)

Mangaluru, Aug 19: Congress leader and former union minister Manish Tiwari on Wednesday August 19 said that India should cancel the upcoming NSA talks with Pakistan given the current environment at the border and also slammed the union government over the arrest of protesting FTTI students in a midnight operation and on a range of issues.

He is in the city to attend a workshop at Mangalore University on Thursday August 20 commemorating the 125th birth anniversary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Addressing a press meet at the district Congress offic, Tiwari said, "The talks between National Security Advisors of India and Pakistan is scheduled for August 23 should be called off. There has been a lot of tension along the LoC at India's north and north-west borders with Pakistan and the international border with continuous shelling from the Pakistan side, even on August 15. A joint statement was signed between PMOs of Pakistan and India in Russia, but it was totally blown out of the water by Pakistan even before the ink on statement dried. Pakistan's National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz rubbishes the joint statement.

"The attack at Gurdaspur in Punjab was the first in 15 years, and it was followed by the arrest of a Pakistan militant in Udhampur. In Jammu and Kashmir there been continuous shelling at the border. What is adding insult to injury is the invitation that the Pakistan High Commissioner has now extended to the separatist elements in Jammu and Kashmir, namely the All Party Hurriyat Conference and other such people who have known linkages with terrorists to come and attend a reception in honour of Sartaz Aziz in Delhi. Last year in August when the Pakistan High Commissioner had extended a similar invitation to the Hurriyat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had cancelled the foreign secretary level talks with Pakistan. We would like to ask PM Modi - now Pakistan has done it again and is leaving no stone unturned to provoke and humiliate India, so why does India want to go ahead with the NSA talks? What is that India expects out of these talks? It would be appropriate given the environment and continuous provocation by Pakistan that the NSA level talks are immediately cancelled. There is no point in holding talks with Pakistan when innocent civilians are being killed by terrorists," he said.

Slamming the union government over the midnight operation in which five students of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune were arrested he said, "These students are agitating against the appointment of a person (Gajendra Chauhan) of low credentials as chairman of FTII. Rather than listening to the students and addressing their legitimate grievances and removing the person appointed and appointing some of stature for the post, the governmnt has resorted to brutal crackdown on innocents youths. The way they were pushed and manhandled does not augur well for democracy.

"It is a harbinger of the Modi midnight knock syndrome - if you protest against the government and disagree, you will be arrested, tortured and jailed and your civil liberty will be assaulted. If you see this in the larger perspective, the government has opposed the right to privacy in the Supreme Court, opposed the decriminalization of the completely obnoxious law of defamation and has been squeamish about the rights of the LGBT community. There was also the assault on media when notices were issued to three channels on coverage of Yakub Memon's hanging. All this tantamounts to squeezing the liberal space in the country. In the years to come, fascism and Hitlerian tendencies will grow. It is very impoertant to protect the ideals of democracy. The abberations of the government should not only be condemned, all the progressive and liberal forces should organize themselves to protect democracy in the country," he said.

To a question on the Goods and Services Tax Bill, Tiwari said, "It is the squarely responsibility of the government and not of the opposition - this principle was set in stone by the current government when it was in the opposition and sanctified by the immortal words of the current finance minister Arun Jaitely then when he said that disruption is a legitimate parliamentary act.

"There is a problem with the design of the GST Bill, and the specific objections delineated by the former finance minister P Chidambaram. They are with regard to the rate of taxation, grievance redressal mechanism etc. The government will have to do two things - It will have to respond to the demand of the opposition - the external affairs minister and two CMs who are responsible for helping a fugitive to escape from the Indian law, and the other on whose watch 40 deaths have taken place, must go; and two - the design issues with regard to the GST Bill should be addressed."

"BJP has become missed call party; PM travelling the world to find sympathisers"

Asked about the future of Congress and the BJP becoming the largest political party in the world following its missed call campaign, Tiwari said, "BJP took pride that it was a cadre-based party but now it has become a missed call party. By 2019 BJP will miss the political bus of India. There is a sea change in the mood of the people, they have realized that the country cannot be run on rhetoric bluff and bluster. The PM has now stopped getting sympathic audiences in India, so he's travelling all over the world to find sympathic audiences to deliver his diatribe. In the last 15 months governmence has taken a big hit - there is religious polarization in India which is deliberately orchestrated by the BJP. Despite the numbers in the Lok Sabha, the government is not completely stable.

"In terms of foreign policy, they have lost peace with Pakistan completely. Therefore my anticipation is, in the months and years ahead not only will the government lose its relevance but you will find that BJP will also be increasingly marginalised to the sidelines of Indian politics," he said.

On Modi's comments on previous UPA government during his recent tour to the UAE, he said, "The PM not only did it in Dubai but also in Canada. It is completely unbecoming of the Prime Minister or the office of the Prime Minister to behave this way. But unfortunately he seems to be suffering from Congress phobia or Congress obsession, and the funny thing is that the Prime Minister who is ready to circumnavigate the globe in order to deliver lectures doesn't have the courage to face the Parliament for a single day. If PM Modi had conviction of courage he would have come to the floor of the Parliament. If this continues we will have to send our spokesperson to counter him on foreign soil."

"From last many months they have not introduced a single new programme. There is no creative thinking in so far as public policies are concerned. They abolished the Planning Commission and created the Niti Ayog which has not done any work at all. Similarly, if you look at Jan Dhan Yojana, it looks an extortion construct. The whole idea is to take money from the poorest of the poor and give to the capitalists friends of his (Modi's) government. Which poor person can access bank loan so easily? The unfortunate reality is that you have a government in New Delhi which only works for the rich and the capitalists and in fact it is like a puppet at the hands of the big businessmen," he said.