Speakers at a seminar on “Election, Democracy and Communalism” said that people should “sink differences with other political parties” in an effort to vote out the “communal agenda” of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the May 5 elections to the Assembly.
“It is better to support a party with which dialogue is possible,” writer and activist Indudhara Honnapura said, inaugurating the seminar here on Tuesday organised by the Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum.
Mr. Honnapura regretted what he called “amnesia” that has come over a section of Dalits, Christians and Muslims ahead of the elections.
Mr. Honnapura said that it was necessary for them to recall the humiliation meted out to them in the last five years.
Blaming Socialists and Communists for the growth of communalism in the country, he observed that had they been active, communalism would not have gained ground. The failure of democratic and socialist forces resulted in the BJP coming to power, he said.
“The party, which secured only two seats in the 1985 Assembly elections, succeeded in taking its tally to 110 in the last elections,” he recalled.
The former Leader of Opposition in Legislative Council A.K. Subbaiah released a 60-page booklet on the five years of BJP “misrule”.
The other speakers at the seminar included State general secretary of the harmony forum K.L. Ashok.
