Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] general secretary Sitaram Yechury has said the Left and the CPI(M) have been the “most consistent opposition” to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On the other hand, the Congress that has wavered in its fight against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been accusing the Left of collaborating with the ruling party for electoral opportunism, he added.
Addressing a Left Democratic Front (LDF) election rally in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday, the CPI(M) leader urged the Congress and the United Democratic Front (UDF) to introspect upon its political stance in combating communal forces.
In an apparent response to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “demand” to arrest Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Mr. Yechury said, “They are inviting Narendra Modi to harass and arrest the Chief Minister of Kerala. As far as arrests are concerned, remember Indira Gandhi arrested all of us including Pinarayi Vijayan. He was jailed and tortured. We are not afraid of being arrested. Many of our comrades had been martyred while they were in jail.”
He added that those who feared arrests have been leaving the Congress to join the BJP. The former Chief Ministers of Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir are among those who left the party, he said, referring to Ashok Chavan and Ghulam Nabi Azad respectively.
Mr. Yechury also blamed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s policies for worsening economic inequalities in the country. “The poor are becoming poorer and the rich richer. The combined wealth of the top 10 richest persons have increased by 22%, while that of the bottom-half of the population has decreased by 13% last year. These are the two Indias that Modi has created. One, for the corporate, communal and Hindutva nexus, and the other, for the rest of the Indians who are pushed to misery,” he said.
The policies of NDA, he added, have also paved the way for the highest level of unemployment in the country since Independence. “42% of graduates in India are unemployed. Yesterday, the three biggest IT firms in India have declared that at least 1 lakh IT professionals will be retrenched because there is no market. With growing unemployment and inflation, the real wages of the people have stagnated in the last 10 years. The Centre’s statistics itself have revealed that household savings have reached rock bottom of less than 5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first time since Independence,” he added.
