The Kerala CPI(M) will unleash a massive campaign blitzkrieg against the BJP in the context of its ongoing Jana Raksha Yatra against the alleged Marxist and Jehadi terror in the State after the October 11 Assembly by-election in Vengara constituency in Malappuram district.
Instead of replying directly to the charges being leveled by the BJP in its Yatra, the CPI(M) will concentrate its energies on efforts to convince the people in the State that the ideology and programme of the BJP and Sangh Pariwar are absolutely irrelevant as far as the Kerala society is concerned, according to CPI(M) sources.
The CPI(M) leadership feels that the influence of the BJP and Sangh Pariwar has already attained saturation socially and politically in Kerala and it cannot expand its base further without the help of an “external situation”. The CPI(M) has reportedly conveyed its fears in this regard to the lDF Government it heads in the context of the BJP’s ongoing Yatra.
“Such an external situation can happen only if there is turbulence. That is what (State CPI(M) secretary) Kodiyeri Balakrishnan meant when he said the BJP Yatra was aimed at provoking the Marxists. Party units at all levels have already been warned about the possible fallouts of the BJP Yatra,” a former CPI(M) theorist said.
The CPI(M)’s plan is to use the meetings the party is holding currently in preparation for its 22nd congress to be held in April as venues for its anti-BJP campaign. Marxist leaders are confident that it will be easy for the party with its extensive network of grassroots committees to reach the anti-BJP campaign to the entire Kerala population.
The CPI(M) leadership is learnt to have already instructed the party’s 2,500 local committees in the State to use every effective campaign means including photo and poster exhibitions “to expose the brutalities” committed allegedly by RSS-BJP against its activists. This campaign will be undertaken by local committees at their pre-congress meetings that start by mid-October.
This campaign will acquire further strength with the start of the area committee-level conferences after the local committee meetings and during the district conferences later. More effective cultural programmes will be used in the campaign at that stage. Also, the party will use the social media platforms against the Sangh Pariwar.
The CPI(M) and the ruling lDF it leads have already started a massive campaign in Vengara constituency against the BJP’s programme of what they call “humiliating entire Kerala” by describing the State as a den of Jehadis. This campaign is based on the premise that the Congress and the UDF it heads are incapable of countering the “Sangh Pariwar threat”.
The leadership of the left front also thinks that the political situation evolving out of the BJP’s Kerala march would work in their favour in the by-election in Vengara, where 71 percent of the voters are Muslims. “This Yatra will only lead to their further alienation from the voters, including moderate Hindus, in Vengara,” said an lDF campaign manager.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) used the absence of BJP chief Amit Shah in the Jana Raksha Yatra on Thursday due to unavoidable engagements in Delhi as an opportunity to ridicule that party and its march. Kodiyeri said, “Shah gave the Yatra a miss because he was convinced that it has failed in getting the kind of support he had expected.”
The BJP chief was scheduled to lead Thursday’s march as it was passing through some of the strongest citadels – ‘party villages’ – of the CPI(M) in Kannur district including Pinarayi, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s native village. The CPI(M) observed an undeclared shutdown in Pinarayi and other areas through which the BJP Yatra passed.