The Communist Party of India (Marxist) central committee’s call on Sunday for an intense and collective movement against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, has virtually put the Congress and United Democratic Front (UDF) leadership in a bind.
The Congress and the UDF that had shied away from joint protests with the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in the initial phase owing to political compulsions within the party and the front will now have to augment their own protests and also adequately explain the reason for ploughing its own burrow.
The anti-CAA protests across the country had a unique nature. Most of them erupted spontaneously with students and youth in the forefront.
Instead of vying with others to appropriate space for gaining political mileage, the Left parties and others have chosen to lend support to the protest. This experiment seems to have helped catalyse the movement and also prompted 20 parties to come forward to organise joint protests.
The CPI(M) central committee meeting that concluded here on Sunday has also unequivocally said that the anti-CAA platform need not be construed as a formation for fighting future elections and it was only a pivot for coordinating the ongoing agitations.
Cohesive movement
The central committee went a step ahead and clarified that considering the regional political complexities in each State, it may not be imperative for all parties to come together under one platform for a united fight.
Those reluctant to join the stream could have their own programmes too. But it has also underlined the need for a cohesive movement that would lend more vigour to the protests.
An all-party meeting held at the behest of the government had entrusted Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala to chart out a future course of action.
But that proposal remains stillborn in the face of resistance from the Congress and the UDF allies.
The CPI(M) call for unified protests is unlikely to elicit a positive response from the Opposition, especially before the human chain the LDF had planned to form on January 26, but the current trend indicates that the stir is set to intensify in the days ahead.
