Communal violence aimed at drawing political mileage: CPI(M)

Mumbai: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday alleged that “communal forces have hatched a well-planned conspiracy” to cover up the Devendra Fadnavis-led Maha Yuti-NDA government’s failure to solve people’s livelihood issues and also to further its communal agenda in Maharashtra.

“The recent communal violence in Nagpur and a series of statements deliberately distorting historical facts by several BJP leaders are part of this conspiracy,” CPI (M) State Secretary Dr Ajit Nawale said.

The CPI(M) demanded a judicial inquiry of the entire chain of events that have poisoned the total social environment of the state and appealed to the people to maintain peace and social harmony with patience and resilience, keeping pre-planned diabolical communal incitement at arms' length.

“It is highly reprehensible that prominent ministers in the state government are leading this attack on the core constitutional values and peaceful social atmosphere in the state. They are publicly claiming that their statements inciting communal flare-ups have the backing of none other than the Chief Minister himself. They are inciting and encouraging various communal outfits not to be scared of the law enforcement agencies, since their own government is in power,” he said.

The CPI(M) demanded that strict action must be taken against all individuals and organisations igniting communal fire in the state.

“The communal violence in Nagpur is clearly a part and parcel of this conspiracy. Instead of those who initiated a communal flare-up, the police are targeting the Muslim minority in the city. A shocking incident of the Municipal Corporation of Nagpur razing with a “bulldozer”, in Uttar Pradesh CM’s Yogi Adityanath style, the house of a Muslim political activist, has made a mockery of the directive of the Supreme Court,” Dr Nawale said.

“The Fadnavis-led state government has failed to solve the issues the common people are suffering from. The treasury of the state government has been emptied with the populist measures to cynically capture power during the farce called the assembly elections at the end of last year. Consequently, the state administration is buckling under a heavy burden of unprecedented debt. This is adversely affecting the development of agriculture, health, education and employment. Reeling under the pro-corporate and anti-people policies, there is tremendous unrest among the state’s working people. It is to divert people’s anger away from the state government’s failures that the state is being pushed into a communal cauldron,” he said.