Soft Hindutva won't help beat BJP: CPM to Cong

At a time when the Congress is adopting a "soft Hindutva" line, the CPM on Thursday said the main Opposition party is “mistaken” if it thinks that such tactics will help them defeat the BJP.

In an editorial in party mouthpiece Peoples Democracy, the CPM said the Congress' election campaign in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan was a "pale echo of the Hindutva platforms in some respects". It said there was a "palpable reluctance" to speak out against the lynchings of Muslims like the killing of Pehlu Khan.

"If the Congress party thinks it can defeat the BJP by such soft Hindutva tactics, it is mistaken. The BJP is going to face electoral reverses in these three states because the people have voted on issues such as jobs, farmers’ distress, lack of basic amenities and corruption," the editorial said.

Last week, party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said that Opposition unity against the Narendra Modi government will not come in the way of fighting such deviations. "We have always maintained the Congress has this proclivity for soft Hindutva...Congress is a secular party but it has an inclination to compromise with communalism. That is Congress character. We had fought this in the past and we will do it again."

During the campaign, the editorial said there was an attempt to prove that the Congress was "genuinely more Hindu than the BJP".

There was a "flurry of temple visits" by Rahul Gandhi in the three states while the Congress manifesto in Madhya Pradesh talked about cow shelters and commercial sale of cow urine. In Rajasthan, the manifesto promised the setting up of an education board to propagate Vedic values, it said.

Referring to the recent 'Kisan Mukti March', it said the participation of a wide range of farmers' organisations pointed to the growing unity and common purpose of the working people to fight for their basic rights.

"The struggle against the BJP and the Modi government is progressing because of the continuous mobilisation of the working people on the issues of livelihood, land, relief for farmers, wages and defence of democratic rights. The slogan heard in the Kisan March was ‘Ayodhya nahin, karz maafi chahiye’ (Not Ayodhya, we want debt relief)," it said.

The peasant mobilisation is going to be followed by the two-day general strike of the working class of the country called by the Central Trade Unions on January 8-9 and "all these streams of struggle are demanding a secular and democratic alternative, which alone can counter the BJP-RSS gameplan and effectively foil it", it said.