JOIN USThe Left parties want to make the Varanasi seat a fight between secular and communal forces.
On Thursday, they indicated their support to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal in a bid to help him overcome BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. The Left is also trying to gather support of other secular parties for Kejriwal.
Senior leader A B Bardhan has hinted at backing the AAP chief, while CPM general secretary Prakash Karat too, in an appeal of sorts, asked secular parties to have a joint “strong candidate”.
Moreover, the CPM, which had declared its candidate, even offered to withdraw from the race. “The CPI (M) had announced its candidate a month ago for this seat. If there had been an agreement for a strong, common, non-Congress secular candidate, the CPI(M) would have considered withdrawing from the fray,” Karat wrote on the party’s election website.
He has termed the battle of Varanasi as a “bigger battle”. “The fight is thus not just against Modi in Varanasi; it is a fight against the Hindutva forces who are seeking to once again acquire dominance in the biggest state and the country,” his article titled ‘Modi In Varanasi: Spearhead of Hindutva’ noted.
“Narendra Modi is contesting from Varanasi for the Lok Sabha election. This step is laden with an ominous political message. The BJP and the RSS are signaling that aggressive Hindutva will underpin the election campaign,” argued the Left leader.