All States must share burden: Rajeswar Rao
GAUHATI, June 12 – Mr. C. Rajeswar Rao general secretary of the CPI said here today that the influx of evacuees from Bangladesh had created a national crisis for India and no State had any right to refuse to temporary accommodate the refugees. Says PTI.
Addressing a Press conference here this morning the CPI leader asked the Union Government to press upon the State to accommodate the evacuees.
Mr. Rao said the Center appeared to have not yet felt the seriousness of the evacuees’ problem and had burdened the border States beyond their capacities. It was not the responsibility of border States alone but all the States of the Indian Union to share the responsibility.
The CPI leader also advised the State to open hospitals with capacity of 200 to 250 beds in the Border States for evacuees in expression of their solidarity with the Bangladesh movement and the people who were fleeing to this country for shelter and security.
He said an explosive situation had developed in the Border States with millions of evacuees entering them and more and more coming daily. Only five percent were getting shelter in Government camps and 25 percent getting rations. The rest seek shelter and food wherever possible. Such things created tensions. There was also the cholera epidemic which had aggravated the situation.
The CPI leader said the party had instructed all the State units to press their respective State to take share in the national burden and also not to make the evacuee problem a partisan issue. So far as our party is concerned we are not making it a partisan issue and hope that other parties also do not do it, he said.
Mr. Rao hoped the liberation movement would soon come to a successful end in Bangladesh and said, “We are grateful to the people of Bangladesh because they have raised the banner of democracy and secularism by the movement in Bangladesh our secularism has been strengthened.”
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 13.06.1971