Even as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday called for a “strong leadership” at the Centre and “true secularism”, the Left parties unitedly slammed him and the BJP, saying the RSS and the BJP were trying to polarise the country along communal lines for electoral gains.
At a joint convention of the Left parties, senior leaders such as the CPI(M)’s Prakash Karat and the CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta attacked the BJP for nominating Modi as its prime ministerial candidate and said the move exposed the BJP’s “divisive, communal agenda” aimed at winning the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The Left leaders dismissed Modi’s “India First” slogan as an empty bag of promises directed by the “capital forces” and said the BJP’s economic policies were the same as those of the Congress.
“The BJP is trying to polarise the country along communal lines to reach power at the Centre in the 2014 general elections. The BJP may try to play out communal riots and rake up issues like the Ram temple construction at Ayodhya to woo the electorate in the run-up to the polls,” said Mr Karat.
He said Mr Modi was chosen as the BJP’s PM nominee by the RSS apparently to maximise electoral gains because of the Gujarat chief minister’s “divisive” personality. “Modi’s selection after several meetings between the BJP and RSS leaders has now left no doubts that it is the Sangh Parivar that dictates the BJP’s decisions,” said Mr Karat. He also accused the BJP of whipping up recent communal riots in several places in UP and Bihar, saying the BJP’s resurrection of the Ram temple agitation was part of its larger “divisive agenda”. He said capitalist groups are keen to see Mr Modi as the next PM to secure their financial interests because of Mr Modi’s anti-farmer policies in Gujarat.
“Vote-bank politics has spurred the BJP to revive the Ram temple agitation, making it the same as the communal politics that began with Adavni’s yatra, at the expense of issues of farmers, labourers or inflation,” said CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta.