Continuing its ongoing protests against what it claims is “government-sponsored” political violence against its cadre in Kerala, the State unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took out a funeral procession of an effigy of “Leftist violence” here on Monday.
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju, who was part of the party’s Jan Raksha Yatra on Monday, said the kind of political violence the Left allegedly indulged in “could not be tolerated” in a democracy and accused the Communist Party India (Marxist) of harbouring “anti-national” thoughts and “warned” the Communist government to fall in line as “violence and governance” could not go hand in hand.
Monday’s Jan Raksha Yatra , which was organised by the north-BJP’s east and south Delhi district units, started from Patel Chowk and concluded at CPI(M)’s office at Gole Market here.
The ongoing campaign to highlight the “Left’s atrocities” in Kerala was also attended by Union Minister V.K. Singh, who stressed the need to make people aware of the Left’s alleged “politics of murders”.
“The only answer to political killings in Kerala carried out by the Left is to make people aware. The Left attempts to intimidate people through such killings but we do not fear such tactics,” Mr. Singh alleged.
Had the Congress been at the Centre, Mr. Rijiju said, President’s rule would have been imposed in Kerala but the BJP was fighting the Left through “democratic means”.
“This is time for action. We will not let forces against our country survive for long. The CPI(M) has anti-national thoughts. We are BJP workers and have survived difficult conditions,” he said. Speaking on the sidelines later, he said violence cannot be tolerated in a democracy like India and that the Communists will not have their way any more.
After the leaders spoke, hundreds of BJP workers carried out a symbolic shav yatra (funeral procession) from central Delhi’s Mahadev Road to the CPI (M) office at Bhai Vir Singh Marg, with the police dispersing protesters using water cannons.
‘Politics of violence’
Launching the Delhi leg of the campaign on Sunday, BJP president Amit Shah had alleged that “politics of violence” was in the nature of Communists and asserted that no amount of intimidation would stop the BJP’s rise in the State. Mr. Shah had started the Jan Raksha Yatra from Kerala’s Kannur district on October 3 as part of the BJP’s efforts to expand its base in the Left citadel. The campaign will conclude on October 17 at Thiruvananthapuram and is likely be attended by a number of top BJP leaders.
