Nilambur bypoll: Welfare Party of India's support for UDF sparks political row over alliances with ‘communal forces'
The Welfare Party of India's (WPI) declaration of support for the United Democratic Front (UDF) in the high-stakes Nilambur Assembly byelection has sparked off a political slugfest between the opposing campaigns over the touchy question of 'courting communal forces for electoral gain.'
Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretary M. V. Govindan stated in Malappuram that the WPI was the 'islamist Jamaat-e-Islami's political arm', and its unconditional support for the UDF highlighted the Opposition's desperation to seek the help of fundamentalist outfits on either side of the religious spectrum to bolster its 'faltering and infighting-riven campaign'.
Mr. Govindan said the 'Jamaat-e-Islami-Congress-Bharathiya Janata Party rainbow concord' in Nilambur was the latest example of majority and minority communal forces working in conjunction against the LDF, with the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) playing second fiddle.
'The Hindu majoritarian Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Jamaat-e-Islami share a symbiotic relationship. Their incendiary politics of hate and divisiveness surcharge their respective ideologies. For the UDF, the Sangh Parivar's and Jamaat-e-Islami's support is an ill wind that blows no good', he added.
When asked whether the CPI(M) had no ideological compunctionabout accepting the support of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) headed by the 2008 Bengaluru serial blast case accused Abdul Nassar Madani, Mr. Govindan replied: 'The PDP, unlike the RSS and Jamaat-e-Islami, is not a party which disavows the constitution and aspires to create a theocratic totalitarian State. The PDF is a victim of revanchist politics. It is ideologically committed to secularism and parliamentary democracy'.
Double-faced stance: Satheesan
Leader of the Opposition V. D. Satheesan termed Mr. Govindan's stance on the WPI's unconditional support for the UDF in Nilambur as double-faced.
He stated that the LDF had welcomed the Jamaat-e-Islami's support in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and later in the 2011 Kerala Assembly elections.
He said the CPI(M) had previously disavowed PDP chairperson Abdul Nasir Maudany and claimed that the LDF government in 1998 preserved communal peace in Kerala in the wake of the Coimbatore serial bomb blasts by arresting Mr. Maudany and handing him over to the Tamil Nadu police.
'The CPI(M) has always displayed the characteristics of an ideologically unmoored and brazenly transactional political chameleon. It has no misgivings about the PDP or Jamaat-e-Islami as far as they back the LDF,' Mr. Satheesan said.
Mr. Satheesan said the WPI had supported the UDF of its own volition. He noted that the Jamaat-e-Islami had changed its political line in 2019, underscoring that Congress was the sole bulwark for secularism at the national level.
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