While Pinarayi Vijayan and MV Govindan said that the Congress was weak, Saji Cheriyan said it should lead from the front.
Published May 15, 2023 | 2:33 PM ⚊ Updated May 15, 2023 | 2:33 PM
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. (Twitter)
With the the Congress notching up an unexpectedly convincing win in the Karnataka Assembly elections 2023, there now seems to be ambivalence among Opposition parties on what role the grand old party should play in a likely anti-BJP front ahead of the 2024 parliamentary polls.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been meeting up with Opposition leaders in an attempt to forge such an alliance, and insists that the Congress — a party who is in alliance with his JD(U) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the state — should play a key role.
The idea has not found traction among some regional parties, especially those who see the Congress as their rival in the state, such as Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the BRS of Telangana’s K Chandrashekar Rao, or Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
In Kerala, where the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF is being challenged by the Congress, the question has led to divergent views within the Left grouping
While Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPI(M) state secretary MV Govindan have expressed the view that the Congress was weak in several parts of the country and cannot take up the fight against BJP on its own, state Fisheries Minister Saji Cheriyan has said the grand old party should lead from the front.
Vijayan, after inaugurating a public meeting at Guruvayoor in the Thrissur district organised by the LDF as part of its second-anniversary celebrations of its second term in office, said the Congress should realise that it is not as strong as it was in the past.
Thus, he said, it would make greater sense to have a “state-wise” strategy of uniting anti-BJP forces to take on the saffron party.
“The BJP, RSS and Sangh Parivar’s stand was that they can do anything they want in the country. It is to this stand that the people of Karnataka have given a resounding reply. They have shown they will not allow them to continue like this,” Vijayan said.
In all the southern states, except for Karnataka, it was non-Congress parties that were in power, the chief minister said.
“We should work according to the changing scenario on the ground and the Congress needs to realise that. It needs to realise that is not the same Congress that was in power in the country for several years,” he added.
The Kerala chief minister noted that the Congress was, in fact, weak in several parts of the country.
“Therefore, the practical strategy for completely defeating the BJP in the country is to unite all the groups which are against the saffron party in a state and counter the BJP state-wise,” the CPI (M) leader said at the event in Guruvayoor.
Adopting this strategy is the only practical way to defeat the BJP completely, he said and added that care should be taken to avoid unnecessary arguments and conflicts between the allied anti-BJP groups.
A similar view was echoed by Govindan a day ago when he said the Karnataka poll results do not indicate a comeback of the Congress and that the grand old party cannot free India of BJP on its own.
“Even they (Congress) do not lay claim to that,” he had said.
However, on Sunday, Fisheries Minister Cheriyan took a line at variance from his party’s top leadership.
The Chengannur, Alappuzha, MLA said that the Congress remained one of the strongest parties in India and there was nothing wrong with asking them to come forward in the fight against BJP.
“Let them lead from the front,” he said and at the same time added that he does not agree with the Congress’ stand on various issues in Kerala.
“However, to ensure secularism in the country, they need to be at the forefront. There is no argument on that,” he told reporters.
In the May 10 Karnataka Assembly polls, the Congress won 135 of the total 224 seats, while the BJP and the former prime minister HD Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular) secured 66 and 19 seats, respectively.
(With PTI inputs)
