Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan rebuts UDF's election-eve campaign that the CPI(M) tacitly sought RSS votes in Nilambur
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has sought to give the lie to the Opposition United Democratic Front's (UDF) poll-eve campaign that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] was tacitly seeking Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) votes in the Nilambur Assembly byelection by 'wistfully' harping about its Emergency-era alliance with the Jan Sangh, the precursor to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Mr. Vijayan told a press conference that the CPI(M) worked with socialist Janata parties headed by Jayaprakash Narayanan to oppose Congress' authoritarian rule during the Emergency. Some Hindu majoritarian nationalist elements were embedded in the Janata movement. They broke away later, leading to the formation of the BJP in 1977.
The CPI(M) was not part of the Janata Party-led electoral coalition that opposed the Indira Gandhi government in 1977. The CPI(M) fought the Congress on its own, he said.
Quoting books authored by former Intelligence Bureau chiefs, journalists, and influential leaders in Indira Gandhi's close political circle, Mr. Vijayan claimed that Ms. Gandhi had despatched her son Rajiv Gandhi to pay obeisance to the RSS leadership for the Hindu majoritarian organisations' support for the Congress in the crucial 1980 Lok Sabha election prompted by the fall of the Morarji Desai government.
'By several accounts, Rajiv Gandhi touched the RSS supremo's feet. Later, the RSS lauded Rajiv Gandhi as a leader of the Hindus when he removed the locks on the Babri Masjid gates for Hindu devotees to worship as Prime Minister in 1989,' he added.
Closer home, Mr. Vijayan said the UDF supported BJP leaders, including K.G. Marar and O. Rajagopal, to fight the Assembly elections. 'More recently, photographs showing UDF leadership paying obeisance in front of the picture of RSS ideologue M.S. Golwalkar surfaced on conventional and social media. A former Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president said he had sent his supporters to guard RSS offices. The line between Congress leadership and RSS appeared blurred,' he added.
Mr. Vijayan said the CPI(M) had never sought any alliance with divisive communal forces irrespective of their religious hues, including the radical Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami, which has thrown its lot with the UDF in Nilambur bypoll.
He said opposing Jamaat-e-Islami's theocratic ideology was not tantamount to stoking Islamophobia, as alleged by the UDF.
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