BJP-RSS systematically stoking communal passions: CPI-M

CPI(M) on Thursday accused BJP-RSS of "systematically stoking communal passions" as a build up to the final phases of polls in the next two weeks, especially in a large number of seats in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

"The next two weeks come as a forewarning to all Indians. Such spread of communal poison and polarisation may fetch the BJP some electoral dividends but that shall be at the grave expense of India's unity and integrity and communal harmony," senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said.

As the last two laps of the polls approach, "the RSS-BJP is systematically stoking communal passions" because several seats in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar would go to polls in these phases, he said in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of party organ 'People's Democracy'.

"Apart from sending the largest number of members to the Lok Sabha, UP and Bihar constitute the heartland of the Hindi belt which is crucial for the communal forces and often regarded as their strongest support base. The worst of the vote bank politics - the consolidation of the majority Hindu vote bank - is now being unleashed," he said.

Maintaining that BJP's Prime Ministerial aspirant "himself has fired the salvo in Bengal warning that Bangladeshis should be prepared with their bags packed, Yechury said this was "nothing else but the signal to the Hindutva storm troopers to go on a communal offensive."

The tirade against "so-called Bangladeshis is an age-old RSS pet recipe to stoke communal passions by targeting all Bengali-speaking people who hail from West Bengal" in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, he said, while also referring to the recent controversial statements by VHP leader Praveen Togadia.

"Under this present Gujarat chief minister who aspires to be the country's prime minister, Gujarat has been partitioned on religious lines decades after the British inspired partition of the Indian sub-continent," Yechury said.

He said it was now clear that the BJP has "embarked on an agenda of double-speak and a dual track strategy. In areas where communal polarisation may not fetch handsome electoral dividends, it has harped upon development as its agenda trying to camouflage its real agenda of communal polarisation.

"Now that elections to most of these parts of the country are over in the first seven phases, (BJP) is baring its communal fangs," he added.