Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) expressed serious concern over the Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram meeting the chief of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Leon Panetta.

In a statement, the party’s Polit Bureau said this was the first time that the CIA chief was accorded a meeting with the Union Home Minister.

Apart from meeting his intelligence counterparts in India, Mr. Panetta was received at the political level, signalling the new status of the CIA in India.

“The CIA is notorious for its interventions in the political affairs of various countries including destabilising governments considered inimical to U.S. interests,” the Polit Bureau said.

The party said the development was a pointer to how things had changed under the Manmohan Singh government.

“India is fast becoming like Pakistan where the CIA and the FBI chiefs meet with the Interior Minister and Prime Minister,” it said.

Matter of concern

The role being played by the U.S. security and military agencies in the country and the manner in which the Congress-led government was promoting such ties should be a matter of serious concern for all those who wished to protect national sovereignty and the integrity of the country’s democratic system.