'It is our aim to capture power and rule in Kerala.'
'We may not be able to achieve our target in one attempt.'
By just hammering once, you will not be able to break a rock; you need to hammer the rock several times.'
Following the announcement of assembly election results in Kerala on May 19, a string of violent incidents in the state led to the death of a Communist Party of India-Marxist worker in Pinarayi and a Bharatiya Janata Party supporter in Thrissur.
In the days to follow, the violence shifted to New Delhi with around 600 people being detained as BJP workers and supporters protested outside the CPI-M's national headquarters against the violence in Kerala.
Seeking to blame the Left solely for the violence, Kerala BJP chief Kummanam Rajasekharan, who lost the 2016 assembly election to K Muraleedharan -- Congress leader and former chief minister K Karunakaran's son -- by less than 10,000 votes, claims that it is only through violence that the Communists keep their cadres together.
Rajasekharan spoke to Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com before he flew to New Delhi to meet President Pranab Mukherjee along with BJP President Amit Shah to apprise him of the situation in Kerala.
Are you satisfied with the assembly election results?
Definitely, I am satisfied. The BJP's vote percentage rose from 6% to 10% and the NDA (National Democratic Alliance got a vote share of 15%.
The LDF (Left Democratic Front) got an increase of only 0.3% and the UDF (United Democratic Front)'s vote share dipped by 6%. So if you look at this statistics, only the NDA has made some gains.
But you won only one seat...
From not having any, we have got one seat now. That is a big achievement, according to us.
Most exit polls predicted the BJP to win at least 2 to 3 seats. Despite coming second in seven seats, you won only one. What went wrong?
It is not a small matter for us to have won 30 lakh (3 million) votes. Both the LDF and the UDF were saying all along that they would not let the BJP enter the Kerala assembly.
(Congress leader and former defence minister) A K Antony said we could only enter the assembly with a visitor's pass.
The one seat we won and the 30 lakh votes we got is the answer to all those people.
The LDF and UDF worked together and worked really hard to defeat the BJP. It is only because of this understanding that they could defeat us in many places where we came second.
Is it not for the first time that the BJP won a seat and also came second in 7 constituencies? In Manjeswaram, our candidate lost by just 89 votes!
That is why we don't consider this election as a defeat, but it is our step towards ruling Kerala after five years.
When I asked you what BJP chief Amit Shah wanted from you after you were chosen as the state BJP president, you had said that he wanted you to capture power in Kerala.
It is our aim to capture power and rule in Kerala. We may not be able to achieve our target in one attempt.
By just hammering once, you will not be able to break a rock; you need to hammer the rock several times. Our journey is also like that.
We have taken the first step to our target, we know that we have many more steps to climb.
Did Amit Shah congratulate you on the BJP performance?
Of course, he was happy and satisfied with the vote base, and congratulated us. What we have achieved in our first effort is worth appreciating and he has done that.
The Left looks at the rise of the BJP as a worrying factor. They say they are worried about a communal party having created a base in Kerala...
They are worried about their foundation shaking with the rise of the BJP. That is why they label us as a communal party.
Once they called us as a party of the Savarna (caste) Hindus; with the SNDP (Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam's Bharat Dharma Jana Sena and C K Janu joining hands with us, they no longer say so.
Now, they have only the communal card against us. Wait and see, we will make them swallow that too in another 2 years.
We will bring more groups under the NDA umbrella and increase our vote base.
Was the BJP not able to rule a Christian-dominated Goa?
Have we not joined hands with the Muslim-dominated political parties to rule Jammu and Kashmir?
That means we can bring people from all communities into our fold with development as the agenda. So the communal card will not work anymore.
Do you foresee a three-cornered contest in Kerala in the future?
Definitely! That is a reality. You will soon see tri-polar contests becoming bipolar in Kerala.
Bipolar?
Yes. Like you saw in West Bengal, the UDF and LDF will join hands to fight the BJP. If they can join hands in Bengal, why won't they do it in Kerala?
Even before the LDF started ruling the state, violence between the Left and BJP cadres has resulted in one death.
Does that mean the next five years are going to be very violent, like the kind of violence we see in Kannur?
Everyone knows that the politics of the Left is violent and it is only through violence and hatred that they keep their cadres together.
They follow no ideology; only violence. That is why they attack those who oppose them.
See, they have already started the kind of violent politics they follow the moment they got power.
But the Left accuses the RSS and BJP of starting it by throwing a bomb at the victory rally in Pinarayi...
If you ask the police now, you will know that no bomb was thrown at the rally and no bomb exploded there.
What happened at their rally was that one of their vehicles with party members rolled down a slope and ran over a man who was dancing behind the vehicle.
Do you think anyone in Pinarayi has the courage to throw a bomb at a Communist rally there? I do not think anyone in Kerala has the guts to do so.
What the Left is spreading is pure lies. Let us wait for the police report.
