Wednesday, April 12 2006 15:45 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today (Apr 12, 2006) cited the examples of veteran Marxist Somnath Chatterjee becoming Speaker of the Lok Sabha and DMK occupying a central place in national politics to drive home the great strength of Indian democracy where moderation and consensus building are the buzzwords.

"Who could have imagined 50 years ago that a Communist leader, belonging to a party that pledged itself to overthrow 'bourgeois democracy' and establish the 'dictatorship of proletariat', would so proudly and dignifiedly occupy the chair of the Speaker of our Lok Sabha?," he said while presenting first Ramnath Goenka Awards.

"Who could have imagined 50 years ago that a political party in Tamil Nadu created to champion secessionism would one day move to the very heart of our national politics?, he said apparently referring to DMK, whose leader the late C N Annadurai dropped the demand for secessionism in the wake of Chinese aggression in 1962.

The DMK is one of the major constituents of the UPA while the CPI(M) is a crucial component of the Left parties which provide outside support to the government at the Centre.

He said it was the great strength of democracy and the democratic forces that it shunned extremes. It forced every extremist political formation to moderate itself and to moveto the centre to be able to move to the centre-stage.

Observing that political development in the country stood testimony to this great truth, he said political movements that were launched in pursuit of extreme and sectarian causes, some with ostensibly anti-national objectives, have over time moderated themselves and chose to join the national mainstream.

Democracy and the electoral process have a logic of their own and they make it possible for those who were disaffected to feel that they belong, Singh said.