Before hurling allegations at the CPI(M) in Kerala, the Congress will do well to ask itself why a large number of people joining the BJP are Congress leaders, said CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury in an interaction with The Hindu at Parakkandy early this week.
“In Kerala, too, people think it’s a safer bet to have the Left which is unlikely to defect to the BJP. In West Bengal and Tripura, we are getting killed. But our leaders don’t become turncoats. That sort of character you require in the party, which the Congress doesn’t have,” Mr. Yechury said.
Rebuts Modi’s charges
Responding to a question on the charges levelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the CPI(M) and the Kerala government, he said Mr. Modi was deliberately spreading false information as the agencies under him could not come up with anything incriminating in the diplomatic baggage gold smuggling case even after years of investigation. “The point is the boot is always on the other foot for Mr. Modi. He makes these reckless allegations while he is singularly responsible as the head of the Central government for having conducted these investigations,” Mr. Yechury said.
On the Income Tax department freezing the bank account of his party in Thrissur, he said details of all accounts across the country using the CPI(M) PAN card were consolidated every year and submitted by the party and “there were times when the Election Commission of India and other authorities went on record saying that we were the ones that actually fulfilled that obligation in time. Even the ruling party does not do that, but no questions are asked”.
The action of the I-T department in the midst of elections, a year after receiving the data, smacked of mala fide intentions, especially when it is read with the arrests of Delhi and Jharkhand Chief Ministers, the attacks on Opposition leaders, engineering a split in Opposition parties, etc, he said.
Stable alternative
Mr. Yechury slammed a major section of the media for parroting a BJP-sponsored narrative that he claimed was diverse from the people’s narrative of an alternative to the present dispensation. The INDIA bloc was never meant to be a pan-Indian grand narrative, but an understanding and seat adjustments at the State level to keep the BJP out which was achieved in most States. It wasn’t tried in States like Kerala where the BJP was a non-entity and in places like West Bengal where the idea was to ensure anti-incumbency against the Trinamool Congress government should not favour the BJP. So, the INDIA bloc offered a very viable, stable alternative, he said.
The Prime Minister’s frequent campaign forays to Kerala and Tamil Nadu signalled sheer desperation. While targeting over 400 seats, the BJP and Mr. Modi knew full well that they had hit the ceiling in terms of the number of seats in 2019 in States where the sharpening of communal polarisation worked for them. They would lose some of those seats as well. Mr. Yechury said repeated visits by Mr. Modi would boomerang on his party as seen in the Karnataka Assembly elections. He added that if free and fair elections were held, the CPI(M) would improve its electoral performance in West Bengal and Tripura.
(Full interview: https://newsth.live/Yechury)
