The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday posited that the Congress’s decision to skip the consecration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya had given an added impetus to the broad alliance of anti-Sangh Parivar forces under the aegis of the INDIA bloc.
CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan struck a positive note after assailing the Congress for remaining ambivalent for long about attending the “Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sponsored” religious function.
He said the INDIA bloc was the primary bulwark against the rise of Hindu majoritarian nationalism at the national level and the Congress had done well to hew to its core secular values.
Mr. Govindan’s latest averment contrasted his grim inference in December that the Congress’s humming and hawing over the Ayodhya question would subvert the anti-Hindutva politics that lay at the secular heart of the INDIA bloc and render the alliance a farce.
He also said the CPI(M) ‘s unflinching stance on the Ayodhya issue had forced the Congress to relent and fall in with the INDIA bloc’s national line.
However, the CPI(M) was yet to correct the tack that the Congress’s backsliding on secularism, the party’s apologetic defence of the Hindutva agenda, and failure to yoke regional and democratic forces to the INDIA bloc opened the door for the BJP to win in the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh.
