New Delhi: An influential Congress leader from Kerala has urged party president Sonia Gandhi to take on a more strident anti-US stand as it otherwise stood to lose out to the Left as champions of the "anti-imperialist" constituency.
Alleging that the Left was having a field day in Kerala with its anti-US rhetoric, former state minister MM Hassan said in a letter that the Congress needed to champion the "anti-imperialist struggle" a little more strongly.
"This will injure the prospects of our party in Kerala," warned Hassan, a member of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and chairman of the party's media committee in the state.
Sonia, Hassan says, should come up with an "efficient nation-wide campaign against the US imperialism".
"It is our moral responsibility to question the occupation of some sovereign nations by American imperialism, especially when the Congress has a proud history of fighting British imperialism," said the letter, a copy of which has been made available to IANS.
"But it is quite disappointing that the response from AICC has belied all our expectations," Hassan said, reminding Sonia Gandhi of late prime minister Indira Gandhi's open opposition to the decision to hang former Pakistan prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
He pointed out that the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) swept the April-May Assembly elections saying the "Congress is supportive of the US imperialism".
In a state with a large number of Muslims, that is believed to have fetched the LDF many votes because of growing anger in the Islamic world against the US over its occupation of Iraq.
The Marxists, he added, also used the Indian government's vote against Iran's nuclear issue at Vienna to attack the Congress.
Hassan has drawn the attention of the Congress leadership to the mass protests in Kerala against the death sentence awarded to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"Our party in Kerala has also identified with this protest," he said, adding that nevertheless the Left was denouncing the Congress because New Delhi, according to Hassan, had taken a timid position on the issue.
"We have not come forward to deplore the American stand nor have we demanded (do not) hang Saddam Hussein," Hassan's letter to Sonia said.
He said he was aware of the changes in the international situation and added that it would was bound to be reflected in the country's foreign policy.
And in language reflecting the Left thinking, Hassan urged Sonia to focus on the "large sections of farmers, farm workers and labourers and other poor people rendered helpless by the negative impact of globalisation".
He suggested that the Congress should "offer explicit guidelines to implement economic reforms with a humane face (both in New Delhi and the states).
"Secularism, democracy and socialism have been well-entrenched policies of our party. But it is quire depressing to note that the Congressmen and women are ashamed even to articulate these words (now)."
According to Hassan, it was time Sonia instilled "more ideological re-awakening" in the Congress, which traditionally was a left of centre party but embraced free market economy in 1991.
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