Friday, March 25 2005 14:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today (Mar 25, 2005) accused Left parties of letting down the people by its support for the controversial Patents Bill and helping the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government pass it in Parliament.

Senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu told a press meet that the new patents regime was certain to frustrate the national goal of 'Health for goal' since it would increase the prices of essential medicines and life-saving drugs by an enormous margin. "It will hurt the interests of Indian Pharmaceutical industry," he said.

There were many grey areas in the bill and if the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) and other Left parties had taken a tough stand, the Government would have referred the Bill to the standing committee of the Ministry of Commerce, he said.

There was no hurry in passing the Bill now as BJP had assured that the committee would finish its work and present the Bill before Parliament by April 18, when it reassembled, he said.

BJP president L K Advani had even suggested to the Government that it could re-promulgate the patent ordinance after proroguing Parliament, he said.

He said even the World Health Organisation (WHO) had stated that the Patents Bill would increase the prices of drugs used in the treatment of AIDS, cancer and heart ailments.

He said that he had written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to allocate funds for fast track courts. These courts would cease to exist from April 1, if the Centre did not allocate funds, he said.