The 23rd party congress of the Communist party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] ended in Kannur, the red bastion in Kerala, with a call to all secular and democratic forces to join together to fight against what the party calls the communal and divisive agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates including the BJP and the government the latter leads at the Centre.
As per the political resolution passed at the congress, the CPI-M does not envisage a national political alliance with the Indian National Congress though it looks forward to working with like-minded secular democratic parties at the state level. The Communists feel the grand old party has messed up on its own agenda and even follows a soft-Hindutwa politics.
The BJP, which the CPI-M identifies as the bête noir, has exhausted the most important items on its agenda including building a Ram temple at Ayodhya and scrapping Article 370, and is now very focused on reworking its agenda and pursuing it, the last being the advice for non-Hindi speaking states to use Hindi as the link language instead of English. The saffron party does not see merit in the argument that India is home to all possible diversities and hence binaries seldom solve issues, rather than create them.
Thus, the BJP and the CPI-M are clear on their agendas but the difference is that while the former has been gaining strength electorally in a steady way, the leftists are losing ground in a similar way. If the CPI-M were to succeed in defeating forces which it thinks would divide India further and compromise the lives and livelihoods of the working class and the poor in favour of the rich, it must gather strength on its own and then create a platform that can put up a joint fight. Given the ground realities of Indian politics, the comrades will have a tough time pursuing their goals.
