2019 Lok Sabha polls result marked consolidation of rightward political shift: CPI(M)

The 2019 Lok Sabha results marked a "further consolidation of the rightward political shift and growing fascistic trends" in India with the BJP successfully shifting the poll narrative away from people's livelihood issues using the Pulwama terror strike and subsequent Balakot surgical strikes, the CPI(M) has said.

The draft political resolution for the CPI(M)’s Party Congress in April this year released last week said that there has been a “furthering of the Hindutva agenda of the fascistic RSS” with the return of Narendra Modi government with a larger number of seats and vote-share as the BJP succeeded in scripting a narrative built around “communal nationalist jingoism”.

“It was shifting the poll narrative away from people’s livelihood issues and the then growing popular struggles, utilising the Pulwama terrorist attack and the subsequent Balakot surgical strikes,” it said.

Analysing the 2019 results, the draft resolution said that the BJP succeeded in creating an “overarching Hindu identity cutting across social-ethnic divides to a significant extent, accompanied by crass micro level caste based mobilisations”. Massive money power and control over the media and social media influenced the results significantly, it added.

“The 2019 election results marked the further consolidation of the rightward political shift and growing fascistic trends in India,” the draft said.

Referring to the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya and Kashi Vishwanath Ganga corridor, the party said the national telecast of these functions projected it as state-sponsored events, giving a “complete go by” to the principle that the State should stay away from any religious activity.

“This signals the growing reality that the Modi government is moving India towards a Hindutva State,” it said adding that BJP-ruled states were enacting laws aimed at sharpening communal polarisation, which are routinely used to target people from the minority communities and cited a bill brought against conversions in Karnataka among others.

It also claimed that Parliament is “increasingly being reduced to a platform for the BJP to exercise its tyranny of the majority”, with legislations enacted bypassing all Parliamentary procedures and practises like scrutiny by Parliamentary committees.

Referring to the suspension of 12 MPs in the last Winter Session on “flimsy reasons”, the CPI(M) alleged that it ensured a comfortable majority for the BJP in Rajya Sabha.

Citing the BJP cornering large share of donations through electoral bonds, it also alleged that the concessions to the corporates in return for political funding are the highlight of “crony capitalism” under the Modi government.

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