RSS, BJP escalating violence in Kerala: CPI-M

Claiming that six of its activists have been killed and scores of others injured since the LDF returned to power in Kerala, the CPI-M on Friday alleged that, in fact, the Left parties were at the receiving end of "murderous attacks" by the RSS and its outfits.

Condemning Thursday's bomb blast near a Communist Party of India-Marxist public meeting in Kannur, the party called upon the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to immediately stop such violent attacks.

"The RSS' game plan is to expand its political base through such violence and communal polarisation which is its standard methodology," party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told the media here.

"This attack by the BJP-RSS hoodlums once again nails the lie that it is the RSS-BJP which is at the receiving end of violent attacks in Kerala, particularly in Kannur district," the party subsequently said in a statement.

Earlier on Wednesday, Bharatiya Janata Party National General Secretary P. Muraleedhar Rao called on Kerala Governor P. Sathasivam to apprise him of what he called "escalating violence unleashed by the CPI-M workers on our (BJP-RSS) cadres".

"The fact is that in Kerala, it is the CPI-M and other constituents of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) that have been at the receiving end of the murderous attacks mounted by the RSS and its outfits," said the CPI-M.

"In the short duration that the current LDF government has been in office, as many as six CPI-M workers have been killed and scores of its other members injured. Party offices and houses of its members have been attacked and destroyed in brutal attacks launched by the RSS," said the CPI-M statement.

"The politburo calls upon the RSS-BJP combine to immediately stop such violent attacks," it added.

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the CPI-M returned to power in the southern state after the May 2016 assembly elections.

--IANS

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