Tag: YECHURY

Facing a shrinking voter base, the Left parties, which are part of the opposition INDIA bloc, are virtually engaged in a do-or-die battle in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls…reports Asian Lite News

Notwithstanding its reduced numbers in Lok Sabha, the Left has been at the forefront of setting the agenda in the fight against the BJP – whether it was on Article 370, CAA, agri laws or electoral bonds – and will improve its performance electorally in the upcoming polls, CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said here.

Yechury also asserted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will not be able to make a dent in the southern states.

Facing a shrinking voter base, the Left parties, which are part of the opposition INDIA bloc, are virtually engaged in a do-or-die battle in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

With just five MPs in the outgoing Lok Sabha – three of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and two of the Communist Party of India (CPI) – the Left parties are at their lowest in almost six decades.

“You see, electorally the Left will definitely improve from the earlier election. But the point… the crucial thing for the Left is not really the question of how many seats you win or not but how much of the agenda are you setting?” he said.

“You look at even the last five-year period, on every single issue that the BJP brought which we consider divisive and which we don’t consider is in consonance with our Constitution on India… the Left’s initiative was setting the agenda and simultaneously for the entire people’s struggles,” Yechury said while citing various issues raised by the Left.

“It started with Article 370, the first one. That Article 370, the Left was the first to contest and in fact, I was the first political leader who managed to breach through and visit Srinagar with Supreme Court’s authority and orders,” Yechury said.

After the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, which was followed by the detention of political leaders and imposition of curfew in Jammu and Kashmir, Yechury filed a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court regarding the detention of party leader Yusuf Tarigami.

He was allowed to travel to Srinagar to visit the ailing leader. Tarigami was also allowed to come to Delhi for treatment at AIIMS and later permitted to go back as top political leaders in the state remained under detention.

“Then CAA, that entire debate on that nationwide debate and the protest and the challenges in the Supreme Court, the Left was in the forefront,” he said.

The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) led to a series of protests in Delhi and the rest of the country against the law, which expedites the grant of citizenship to members of minority communities- Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains and Buddhists- from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who came to India on or before 31st December 2014, as well as the National Register of Citizens (NRC) .

“Whether it is on the question of electoral bonds, whether it is on the question of Bilkis Bano reference etc., on each one of them, the Left’s initiative was setting the agenda and simultaneously for the entire people’s struggles,” Yechury said.

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The CPI-M leader said that the BJP is using hate politics and Hindutva identity to win elections by putting all the other teething issues faced by the people of the country in the back-burner, reports Asian Lite News

The General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Sitaram Yechury, has called for a broad alliance of Left, secular and democratic forces to unseat the BJP.

He said the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ ideology of the BJP is the biggest challenge faced by the country, and the saffron party is trying to replace the secular and democratic traditions of the country with this ideology.

The CPI-M leader was delivering the inaugural address at the 23rd party conference at Madurai on Wednesday.

Yechuri said that even after the protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act, farm laws, and the popular discontent against the Union government on the rising fuel prices and economic policies, the BJP is having an edge in the elections in the country.

The CPI-M leader said that the BJP is using hate politics and Hindutva identity to win elections by putting all the other teething issues faced by the people of the country in the back-burner.

He also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of promoting the movie ‘The Kashmir Files’, which he said speaks only about the killings of Kashmiri Pandits by the militants in the 1990s.

He said the movie doesn’t talk about the murder of 1,635 people of other faiths, including Muslims, by the militants in Kashmir during the same period.

Yechury also came slammed Vice President for supporting the promotion of Bhagavad Gita in educational institutions, asking why the government is not promoting texts of other religions.

He said that India is a secular country and that Gita only justifies caste hierarchy and caste atrocities in the society.

The CPI-M leader cited the examples of Gita justifying subjugating women, and added that Sudras were depicted as manual scavengers in the text.

He said that promoting such a reactionary, backward, and exploitative system should not be allowed.

The CPI-M General Secretary said that in Scandinavian countries, right-wing governments were thrown out by the people and replaced with Left governments, adding that countries like Chile, Honduras and Peru had strongly resisted the imperial hegemony of the United States.

Secretary of Tamil Nadu CPI-M, K. Balakrishnan, and other senior leaders were present in the meeting.

General strike against central govt

The Politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday congratulated the working class for the successful 48-hour general strike held on March 28 and 29 in the country. Millions of workers responded to the call given by 10 Central Trade Unions and various sectoral federations, the official statement on Tuesday said.

According to reports, there was a total shutdown in Kerala and the strike had a huge impact in major industrial centres in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Karnataka, Assam and Tripura.

Insurance and banking services saw total participation in the strike. Large number of workers in key sectors like transport, electricity, state government and central government employees, scheme workers also participated in the strike.

The success of the strike reflects the growing anger against the BJP government’s policies of monetisation of national assets, privatisation of public sector units, four labour codes and price rise, the statement said. The strike call was actively supported by various Kisan organisations, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) and agricultural workers’ organisations.

The CPI-M condemns the high-handedness of police in certain states. The government should heed to the workers’ demands instead of resorting to repression. This general strike should be a warning to the government not to pursue anti-working class policies, the Party said.

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