Kerala Opposition Leader refutes CM’s charge that Congress’ failure to take allies along aided BJP in polls

Kerala Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan
| Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT

Kerala’s Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan on Wednesday (March 5) countered Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s claim that Congress’ “disdain” for tactical alliances with secular and regional forces and its “conceited go-it-alone approach” in national and provincial elections had given a leg up to the “Sangh Parivar-led” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the Assembly elections in Delhi and Haryana this year.

At a press conference, Mr. Satheesan said the Aam Admi Party (AAP), an INDIA bloc ally, had turned down the Congress’ plea for a tactical alliance against the BJP in Delhi.

“As a national party, the Congress had no choice but to fight the Delhi elections. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] also fielded its candidates against the AAP in Delhi. If the CPI(M) was earnest in stymieing the BJP, why did it fight the Delhi polls against the Congress and the AAP?” he asked.

Mr. Satheesan said the CPI(M) had “aided” the BJP by fielding candidates against the Congress in the Karnataka Assembly elections. “Mr. Vijayan campaigned against the Congress in the polls”, he noted. 

Mr. Satheesan accused the CPI(M) of yielding to “majoritarian communalism” by “whitewashing” the BJP-led Central government as “non-fascist” in its draft political resolution ahead of the party’s 24th Congress in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, in April.

He said the draft strikingly varied with the CPI(M)‘s anti-Sangh Parivar tack espoused in earlier national conferences. Mr. Satheesan said the late CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury had clearly outlined the Central government’s “fascist character” in myriad articles and political opinion pieces. 

(The CPI(M)‘s recent clarification note on the draft political resolution circulated to State units dwelled on the peril of the Central government’s “Hindutva corporate authoritarianism” evolving into neo-fascism if the “BJP-RSS” were not “fought back and halted.)

Mr. Satheesan said the CPI(M)‘s “clean chit” to the BJP was a “political gambit to court majoritarian communal forces” ahead of the Assembly elections in 2026 after it dismally failed to sway minorities, especially Muslims, to the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) camp in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. 

“The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) spurned the CPIIM)‘s overtures. Its State president, Sayyid Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, said there are a 1,000 reasons to remain in the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and not one rationale to tent with the LDF”, he said. 

Consequently, Mr. Satheesan said, the CPI(M) falsely termed the IUML leadership increasingly revanchist and beholden to the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).

He said the CPI(M)‘s “exoneration” of the Sangh Parivar as non-fascist had opened the door for a tacit understanding with the BJP to disadvantage the Congress in the 2026 Assembly polls.