CHENNAI: The CPM has to learn communication strategy from the Aam Admi Party that managed to trounce both BJP and Congress in the Delhi election, a senior leader said.
“The CPM cannot copy the kind of projection they did, but we can learn from their communication skills,” said CPM Politburo member and president of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), A K Padmanabhan. Lauding the AAP for ‘effective communication and projection of their leader’, Padmanabhan conceded that the Left party lagged behind in capturing the imagination pf the youth through social media.
He described the Congress’ labelling of Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal as a proxy of the Sangh Parivar as an attempt to divert attention from its own abysmal failure in the assembly polls.
During the run up to polling for the Delhi polls, the Left party had extended their support to the nascent AAP, the only outfit that posed a real challenge to the BJP poll machine.
Speaking to Express on the sidelines of the inaugural session of the 21st State conference of the party in Chennai on Monday, Padmanabhan said that Congress leaders like Digvijaya Singh, who made the comment linking RSS and Kejriwal, had the levity to say anything they wanted and get away by changing their opinion in a day. However, the veteran trade union leader hastened to add that the issues raised by AAP in the election din, like water, electricity and rising costs, were the same as those highlighted by CPM since many years. “We wish AAP all the best, but how they plan to resolve the issues of corruption remains to be seen,” he said.
The CPM, which polled only 1,552 votes in the Srirangam bypoll, was contesting only to project the Left as an alternative to the Dravidian parties and send out a message, Padmanabhan said.
To a question, he added that the party was fully supportive of the Neutrino project, which is being opposed by a section of political parties and environment activists. Addressing the gathering earlier, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said that the Dravidian parties had let down the people of Tamil Nadu and were advocating neo-liberal policies by giving up the Dravidian ideologies. He said that there would be a joint demonstration by all organisations opposed to the ‘ordinance raj’ of the BJP-led government at the Centre on February 24 when Parliament’s next session starts to demand withdrawal of the ordinances.
In the first nine months, he added, the Modi-led government has shown that they were in favour of the rich and big corporations, which would ultimately affect the rights of the common man.