'The situation in India is much more grave and serious than all of us think.'
'That's why it's important to defeat the BJP in 2024.'
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, second from left, and Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor, right, are also seen. Photograph: PTI Photo
In 2022, M V Govindan -- popularly known as Govindan Master -- took over as the secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist.
Becoming the CPI-M's state secretary is considered a very powerful assignment as the party is in power only in Kerala.
"2025 is the 100th year of the RSS. If the BJP were to come back to power in 2024, they will declare India as a Hindu Rashtra in 2025," Govindan Master tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier in an exclusive interview at the party office in Thiruvanathapuram, the AKG Centre.
The concluding segment of a two-part interview:
- Part 1 of the Interview: 'BJP will never conquer Kerala'
When the BJP started its outreach programme, many leaders from the church expressed their eagerness to meet Modi... Some prominent leaders from the church said that if the BJP took care of the price of rubber, they would vote for the party.
I agree the BJP is trying hard to win the Christian community. The BJP had just 12% vote share in the last assembly elections.
And now they are trying to woo those communities that have voted for the Congress.
In the local elections, the BJP voters voted for the Congress to defeat the Communist party.
What is happening in Kerala is the BJP votes for the Congress and the Congress votes for the BJP to defeat us.
I will go on to say that the Congress is shedding its secular colours by doing this.
Do you think the slow disintegration of the Congress is the reason behind the BJP's unprecedented rise?
What we are seeing is today's Congress is becoming tomorrow's BJP.
That's why we see A K Antony's son joining the BJP. Even the KPCC president is making many prominent Congress leaders to go to the BJP sooner or later.
What is the strategy of the Communist parties to counter the BJP's minority outreach programmes?
We have no special strategy except make the people of Kerala see the truth.
Slogans like 30 plus, Target Kerala or Rule Kerala will not have any impact here. We are not worried about the BJP at all.
Communalism was never a part of Kerala's history. Secularism is the face of Kerala.
So, anyone trying to make Kerala communal will be rejected outright by the people of Kerala.
They have the minority outreach programme as if they have all the Hindus in their pocket! Majority of the Hindus in Kerala vote for the CPI-M and not the BJP or the RSS.
The talk is that the BJP will come back to power in 2024 as the Opposition is fragmented.
Is there a chance of all the Opposition parties coming together under one umbrella?
Opposition unity is a very complex issue in India ever since the Congress's dominance ended.
The Congress had only 44 seats in the last Lok Sabha elections.
Are there any seats in Kerala where the Congress will win without the support of its UDF partners? Even in Wayanad from where Rahul Gandhi won, will the Congress win without the support of the Muslim League? No.
So, Kerala is not a state from where the Congress can win on its own.
Take Tamil Nadu. Without the DMK, they can't win a seat.
Is there a Congress in Telangana or Andhra or Odisha or Bengal or UP or Gujarat or Bihar or Maharashtra? In Rajasthan, they are fighting against each other.
So, can you name a single state where the Congress has a strong presence?
Nationally, the Congress will not be able to defeat the BJP.
In such a scenario, what should be done? What we, the CPI-M say is that you should take each state as a unit.
And in each state, you should unify all the anti-BJP parties to fight the BJP in the elections so that the anti-BJP votes are not divided.
We should select the party and the candidate for each constituency based on the strength of the party.
This will yield better results than trying for a united Opposition at the national level.
If we try this method, we will be able to defeat the BJP. After all, the BJP had only 37% vote share in the last elections.
We have to see to it that the 63% votes are not divided.
Why did they get so many seats with just 37% vote share? Because the opposing votes are divided.
We should work so that Oposition votes are not divided.
Once the defeat of the major party is achieved, we should be able to form a government.
If the BJP were to come back to power in 2024?
2025 is the 100th year of the RSS. If the BJP were to come back to power in 2024, they will declare India as a Hindu Rashtra in 2025.
The Uniform Civil Code and CAA are all a part of the same idea.
If you cannot make people accept this democratically, they will force it on the citizens which only fascism can do.
The situation in India is much more grave and serious than all of us think. That's why it's important to defeat the BJP in 2024.
If people did not come forward to do so, the idea of India itself will be destroyed in 2025.
But if you look at the history of the world, you will see that fascism did not last forever. People rose democratically to put an end to fascism.
In India also, people should realise that the path of the BJP is towards fascism. Only if they realise this, we will be able to make a change.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
