A three-day meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] that concluded here on Tuesday determined that only tactical seat adjustments between regional secular forces could retard the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s attempt to return to power for a third consecutive term by barefacedly using the perilously divisive Hindu majoritarian nationalism as the party’s central electoral plank.
The CPI(M) noted with alarm that the BJP had moved to resurrect the Citizenship Amendment Act to foment divisions in the country.
On the eve of the national polls, the Centre said it would frame rules for the contentious and polarising legislation the BJP had bulldozed through the Lok Sabha without due diligence or discussion.
The CPI(M) noted that, if implemented, the schismatic law would disenfranchise lakhs of people of migrant origin, particularly in the communally sensitive northeastern States, and cause social unrest.
The central committee felt the BJP would soon forcibily upend the Places of Worship Act 1991. The law mandates that the government would maintain the status quo of religious places, except Ayodhya, as it was on August 15, 1947.
Nevertheless, the CPI(M) said the BJP, with a measure of alleged judicial connivance, has moved firmly to recast centuries-old places of minority worship in Kashi and Madura as temples. It said Sangh Parivar wanted to reframe Sufi shrines as temples.
The CPI(M) said the BJP hoped to stoke such potentially fratricidal issues to lay the ground for its alienating campaign that would weaken the secular democratic guard rails of the federal republic.
The CPI(M) said that the BJP had sounded the death knell of secularism by symbolically amalgamating the State and majority religion with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, RSS chief Mohun Bhagat, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and UP Governor Anandiben Patel donning the role of the main celebrants at the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
At a stroke, the CPI(M) said, the BJP buried the Constitutional principle that the State had no religion.
The BJP used the event as a propaganda tool for electoral gain by seeking to exploit the religious sentiments of individuals politically and, at the same time, demonise other minorities.
The central committee cast the upcoming Parliament elections as an existential battle between fascist-revanchist forces and secular-democratic Opposition.
Seat-sharing talks
Later speaking to mediapersons, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the INDIA bloc LS seat adjustment processes were nearing the final stage. “It will be complete within a fortnight”, he said.
Mr. Yechury said the INDIA bloc would have no seat adjustments in Kerala or West Bengal. “For one, in AAP-ruled Punjab, the INDIA bloc will not engineer any electoral adjustments. The anti-incumbency factor might benefit the Akali-Dal BJP alliance in the State.
However, the India Bloc’s tack in Tamil Nadu was different. The DMK-led secular alliance has knocked BJP out of the reckoning in the State. “The BJP has failed to capture even a single seat in Tamil Nadu in the 2019 elections,” he said.
Mr. Yechury attributed the Congress’s defeat in the State elections in Hindi-speaking regions to its ambivalent stance on secularism. “Pale Hindutva and pale saffron cannot beat the real Hindutva and real saffron,” Mr. Yechury said.
He said the Central government used a “venal cocktail” of “Enforcement Directorate and money power” to unsettle non-.BJP rules governments and engineer defections in Opposition alliances by arm-twisting leaders.
“The ED cases will vanish once a political leader cosies up to the BJP. The Central government has upended the principles of jurisprudence for political ends”, he said.
