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Bardhan calls for BJP's ouster

Communist Party of India general secretary A B Bardhan yesterday called for the removal of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition from power and an initiative by the Congress to form an alternative government.

Presenting the drafts of the political resolution and the political review report at the first plenary session of the 17th congress of the party in Madras, he said the arithmetic of the 12th Lok Sabha and the geopolitical reality demand such an initiative from the Congress because another election cannot be imposed on the country so soon.

Promising support to an alternative government headed by the Congress, Bardhan, however, said this did not mean there would be an alliance with that party. "The CPI, being a party of the working class, cannot forge a political alliance with the Congress, a major 'bourgeois' party," he asserted.

Bardhan said while the BJP's coming to power could not be characterised as a takeover by fascist forces, the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP's guide, is "definitely fascist". He reminded his comrades of veteran Communist leader Ajoy Ghosh's prophecy, that if fascism came to India it would only be through majority communalism. In this connection, he also referred to the BJP's claim that issues relating to Hindutva would be taken up only when it secured a majority on its own.

Saying the CPI would fight minority communalism too, Bardhan observed that minority communalism ultimately helps majority communalism, going by the experience of the Coimbatore blasts during the election campaign earlier this year. Coimbatore, once a communist stronghold, has been handed over to the forces of Hindutva by Islamic fundamentalists, he said.

The BJP's rise to power has accelerated the process of liberalisation and privatisation which will ruin the country, he said. He also warned that the BJP does not believe in federalism, since the RSS has for several decades now been propagating the idea of a polity based on a strong centre with absolute powers.

In his ninety-minute speech, Bardhan emphasised that the tactical line adopted at the New Delhi congress (October 1995) of the CPI, of defeating the Congress, preventing the BJP from coming to power, and building a third alternative, had proved correct. He claimed that the United Front government, established as a "practical response" to the 1996 election results, had achieved much despite being constantly under threat from the Congress which was supporting it from outside.

UNI

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