Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretary M.V. Govindan called for a coming together of secular democratic forces, transcending electoral alliances and pressures of political expediency, to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) bid to impose a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) arbitrarily.
He said the Left Democratic Front (LDF) would spearhead the move to resist the “existential threat to India’s secular national identity, given Congress’s ambivalence about the UCC.”
Mr. Govindan said Rahul Gandhi was yet to reject the Centre’s attempt to trample upon personal laws that governed marriage, divorce and inheritance of minorities.
Notably, a Congress Minister in Himachal Pradesh welcomed the UCC. “Former Union Minister Chidambaram is so far the lone voice in the Congress to oppose the UCC unambiguously,” he said.
Against diversity
Mr. Govindan said Muslims were wary of Congress’s ambiguous position on the UCC. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) realised the undercurrent that could cut the ground from under the United Democratic Front (UDF). “We are not inviting the IUML or any other party to join an electoral alliance. The LDF offers a large umbrella for secular forces to unite against the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian agenda calibrated to stamp out the country’s diversity. The IUML is currently a UDF constituent. The LDF has supported the IUML whenever it has taken the correct position. For one, the IUML supported the government in the Assembly on removing the Governor as Chancellor of State universities,” he said.
Mr. Govindan said the IUML was not anathema to the LDF. “The IUML was part of the EMS government. An IUML breakaway, the Indian National League (INL), is an LDF constituent,” he said.
Manipur riots
Mr. Govindan squarely blamed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for fuelling the Manipur riots by exacerbating ethnic divisions. “Manipur remains an open wound. The riots have claimed hundreds of lives. Rampaging mobs have burned down scores of houses, government facilities, churches and temples. Manipur is a classic example of how RSS fascists engineer social upheavals to sow division and reap myopic electoral dividends,” Mr. Govindan said.
Left MPs would visit Manipur and interact with families displaced by the violence. The LDF would organise campaigns across the 140 Assembly constituencies in Kerala to highlight Manipur’s “BJP-caused woes,” he said.
