NEW DELHI: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Monday said the fight against the BJP and its ideology will continue despite the party’s poor performance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
Acknowledging that the party’s core voter base was diminishing, he said the next task of the party’s central committee, which assessed the election results from June 7-9, would be to woo back their traditional voters. The Left suffered its worst defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and won only five seats across the country.
Yechury attributed the BJP’s electoral victory to several factors, including the Opposition’s failure to unite and the saffron’s party’s success in building a nationalistic narrative. He said the BJP successfully created a narrative post-Pulwama and Balakot while ignoring issues like economy and livelihood of people.
“A Modi persona was created using crony capitalism and institutions like the EC were used to fuel the BJP’s win,” he said.
In a subtle dig at some opposition parties, he said soft Hindutva was not an answer to hardcore Hindutva.
“The fight should be between secularism and hardcore Hindutva.”
Yechury alleged that the Modi government would formulate anti-poor laws now as it had won on “crony capitalism”.
“Constitutional authorities will see the penetration of the RSS...,” he said. Another challenge for the Left, he said, would be the curbing of dissent and communal polarisation.