The Kerala CPI(M) on Friday reiterated that the party had no plan to forge alliance with the Congress in order to fight the BJP even as the State-wide Jana Jagrata Yatra of the ruling lDF led by the CPI(M) against the alleged communal agenda of the Sangh Pariwar and ‘anti-people policies’ of the NDA Government in the Centre is to begin on Saturday.
“The communal agenda and liberal economic policies of the BJP cannot defeated by forming grand alliances between political parties that are not unanimous on policies,” said State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan while Politburo member MA Baby said his party was not prepared to forge opportunistic alliances in order to fight the Sangh Pariwar.
The statements of the two leaders have come in the context of the ongoing dispute within the CPI(M) over the question of forming an alliance with Congress against the BJP. As per reports, the so-called Kerala lobby of the CPI(M) had shot down the proposal of general secretary Sitaram Yechuri for having truck with the Congress in the last meeting of the central committee.
Speaking at a function in his hometown Thalassery in Kannur district, Kodiyeri, also a senior member of the CPI(M) Politbureau, said the alternative politics against the communal agenda and the liberalization policy of the BJP would come up through class struggle and political battles of the masses and not through grand alliances among parties with divergent policies.
“A broad public platform is needed to oppose the fascist practices of the BJP. If that is expanded as political alliances, discomforting situation as have happened in the past will be repeated. We have prior experiences on what would happen if alliances are forged with parties among which there is no policy agreement,” Kodiyeri said.
“The emergence of an alternative force against the communal and liberalisation policies of the BJP and the economic liberalisation policy of the Congress has become necessary in this context. The BJP is trying this hard to weaken the left because it has realized that it is this leftist policy that is going to influence the country in the future,” the CPI(M) leader said.
Describing the reports appearing in the Press on the debates over the possibility of the CPI(M) cooperating with the Congress to oppose the BJP as laced with a lot of spice, Politbureau member Baby alleged that it was the wrong economic policies of the former Congress-led UPA regime that had served as the foundation of the BJP’s current rule.
“The CPI(M) will indeed adopt measures required for resisting the BJP. Our present political obligation is to take the actions that are necessary to ensure the end of the BJP-led rule in the country. We won’t give anyone the opportunity to say that we have failed in that. We are not prepared to forge opportunistic alliances for this,” Baby, a former State Minister, said.
Indicating, however, that the discussions on whether to cooperate with the Congress are not over, Baby said, “Very serious intra-party discussions are going to take place (on this issue). This is not happening for the first time,” Baby said adding that a final decision would be taken at the 22nd CPI(M) Congress to be held in Hyderabad from April 18 to 22.
Meanwhile, the Jana Jagrata Yatra of the lDF, planned in the context of the just-concluded all-Kerala Jana Raksha Yatra of the BJP against ‘Jehadi and Red Terror’, will begin on Saturday. The leftist Yatra, intended at countering the anti-Marxist messages conveyed by the BJP march, will be held as two separate marches, the northern and southern Yatras.
CPI’s all-India secretary D Raja will inaugurate the north zone Yatra to be led by Kodiyeri Balakrishnan at Manjeswaram in Kasaragod district and Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will flag off the south zone Yatra, being led by State CPI secretary Kanam Rajendran at Thiruvananthapuram at 4.00 PM Saturday.