Whether or not it was a deft strategy to win back a section of votes which the Congress-IUML combine lost to the CPI (M)-led LDF in the three-tier local bodies’ polls in November, KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran’s speeches during his ongoing Kerala Raksha Yatra in Kozhikode district were loaded with anti- Hindutva themes and the rise of the RSS after the BJP came to power at the Centre.
Coming down heavily on Narendra Modi government, he said that the Prime Minister had become a crazy NRI modernist who thinks only of visiting foreign countries. The BJP government was engaged in uplifting the industrialists rather than caring for the welfare of the poor in the country.
He said that labour laws framed several years ago to protect the interests of the working class had been sabotaged to suit the requirements of corporates.
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The much-hyped Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was a bogus campaign as it had either failed to take off or lost in slogans.
Writers and artistes were either killed or threatened by fascist forces after the BJP assumed power at the Centre. Previously, the Planning Board had been dismantled and now the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs has been merged with the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr. Sudheeran said.
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The KPCC president also flayed the CPI(M) for refusing to align with the secular parties to fight the BJP in the Bihar Assembly elections. At Thamarassery, Mr. Sudheeran said only the Congress party could take on the Hindutva agenda of BJP president Amit Shah and SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan. Their game plan would not work in the State, he said.
A senior Congress leader said that Mr. Sudheeran’s yatra focussed on anti-BJP campaign as the performance of the UDF was dismal in Kozhikode, Palakkad, Wayanad and Kannur. It had failed to gauge the strong religious undercurrents that favoured the CPI (M)-led LDF.