Yechury calls for a narrative counter to RSS-BJP

Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Thursday said an alternate narrative should evolve in the country to counter the narrative being propagated by the Hindutva forces.

He called on all the secular parties to evolve this narrative and take it to the public.

"An alternative has to be evolved to counter the RSS-BJP narrative. All secular parties must come together to evolve this narrative. Such as the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) in Bihar had a narrative, or the Third Front in 1996 had a narrative," Yechury told media persons at a press conference here.

He said that during demonetisation while the Narendra Modi government successfully propagated its narrative of "temporary pain, long-term gain", the opposition parties failed to counter that in public.

"As many as 16 opposition parties came together in those days, perhaps for the first time. There were more than 300 MPs together. But when we called for a bandh (shutdown), only one or two parties supported us. They failed to take it to the public," Yechury said.

Yechury ruled out the possibility of the Congress leading that narrative, as he said it had its own baggage of scams etc.

He said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is merely a political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that was slowly working "to change the secular socialist democratic republic of India into their version of Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation)".

"They need two-thirds majority to amend the Constitution or to discard it at all. They are working towards it and that's a looming threat all secular parties must realise," he said.

--IANS

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