New Delhi, June 16: A 17-member Venezuela Solidarity Committee (VSC) was formally constituted in New Delhi on June 12, 2013. The meeting was attended by A.B. Bardhan, Prakash Karat, Sudhakar Reddy, Debabrata Biswas, G. Devrajan, Achin Vanaik, Ravi Roy, Nilotpal Basu and Pallab Sengupta. The Solidarity Committee is formed with the participant members with this understanding that it will be a broad based committee by accommodating more members from different sections of the society. The next meeting of the committee will be held on July 19 at 4pm at Ajoy Bhavan. The meeting has issued the following statement: “The Venezuela Solidarity Committee (VSC) hereby affirms its commitment to promoting deeper understanding and friendship between the peoples of India and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The Committee expresses its solidarity with the ongoing efforts by the people and government of Venezuela to create an independent, prosperous, democratic, peaceful and egalitarian society. Such support has become all the more necessary in light of the US Administration’s effort to impugn the legitimacy of the recent Presidential elections in that country, an electoral process deemed by international observers including from the US, as among the freest and fairest that have taken place anywhere. This Committee also wishes to register its strong opposition to any attempt, whether direct or indirect, by the US in pursuit of its imperial interests to interfere with the right and freedom of the people of Venezuela to determine their own future. This Committee supports the initiative taken by the government of Venezuela and  by other progressive governments in South and Central America to bring about a greater continental unity that is also independent of outside powers in order to better resolve the issues”.