Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)
Central Office
Press Release
(Adopted by the meeting of PB of NCP (Mashal) held recently in Kathmandu)
General election of India has been concluded recently. Prime Minister Modi had given the slogan of over more than 400 seats for his party in the election. The main aim behind the slogan was to get necessary majority for amending the constitution of India. It was clear that Modi wanted to eliminate the secularism and establish dictatorial rule by way of amending the constitution with the required majority to do so. So, the recently held election in India was centered on saving the constitution. It is matter of welcome that people of India did not give Modi the necessary majority to amending the constitution, so the reactionary intension of amending the constitution has been defeated. In this sense, India’s opposition parties have achieved a great victory. This is the major aspect of the recently held election in India.
The BJP could not muster even a simple majority to form a government on his own strength. So, it has to form the government taking the support from some other small parties. It is a moral defeat for Narendra Modi because of failure to get simple majority after fighting the election with the slogan of beyond 400 seats for his party. His wrong policies and dictatorial working style are the major reasons for such a defeat.
People were highly dissatisfied with him mainly because of his Hindu fundamentalist policies. He had been claiming that neither he would take bribe nor would let others take bribe, to prove his clean image among people. However, involvement of BJP in great scam in the form of electoral bond, which means giving donation legally to political party in a secret way, was exposed after the verdict of supreme court that nullified taking donation in a secret way from the big companies. Later it was found that BJP was giving license of contract to those companies that gave donation to it.
During the election, Narendra Modi applied extremely undemocratic and dictatorial tactics. He had applied arbitrary methods in the appointment of election commission, and because of it the election commission did not take action against Narendra Modi and BJP despite many complaints of irregularities and violation of election law. Narendra Modi used the media in his favor by imposing naked control over the independent journalism in India.
Narendra Modi had blocked the bank account of Indian National Congress during the election. Many opposition leader and even the chief ministers were accused of indulging in corruption cases, and they were put into the jail during the election time. He arbitrarily performed the ritual of Prana Pratishtha of Lord Ram in the newly built Ram Temple in Ayodhya despite opposition from many saints and for Sankaracharya of India objecting that the construction of Lord Ram Temple was not completed properly. The main reason to do so was to garner vote in the name of Ram Temple. However, the Ram Temple card did not work in the election, and the BJP was defeated ever in Ayoudhya, where the Ram Temple was built. The BJP had to face shameful defeat in the UP considered the center or fortress of Hindu religion. In the last election, Modi had won by over 400 thousand vote margin in Banaras, but this time he won the election just by the margin 150 lakh votes. This again shows that there has been sharp decline in Indian people’s trust in Modi.
Narendra Modi had taken away the provision of 370 given to Kashmir, and had turned it into centrally administered region that denied the autonomy to Kashmiri people. Modi had thought that his popularity would increase because of it. However, his party could not field even a single candidate in election in Kashmir.
Modi’s electioneering style was nonpolitical and of low standard. He did not raise political issue in the election. His main focus was on resorting to false accusation against opposition parties to defame them and garner votes in his favor. Some of the examples of his low standard and politically in appropriate utterances express while accusing opposition parties during the electioneering are given below:
- A) If Congress won the election women’s Mangalsutra would be looted. B) If somebody possessed two buffalos one would be taken away by the Congress. C) the property looted from people would be distributed among Muslims. D) Ram Mandir would be locked with Babari Mosque Modi went to the extent of calling himself a representative of the God, he was sent by the God to fulfill his responsibilities. His party member placed him even above the Lord Jagananath of Puri in Orisha. Indian people could not digest Modi’s such kind of lowest standard propaganda to win the election, so they did not give him even a simple majority, let alone the question of above 400 seats. Our party salutes the Indian people’s verdict expressed through the vote. Their decision has defeated Modi’s reactionary aim of amending the Indian constitution, destroying secularism and establishing fascism.
Narendra Modi had adopted dictatorial policy not only against opposition parties, but within his party too. He took the policy of displacing many higher ranking veteran and famous leaders of the party so that nobody could compete with him for the post of Prime Minister. So, the RSS and many BJP party members did not participate in the election actively. Modi had to face the great lost because of this factor too.
Intra party conflict has not died down, and it is continuing in the BJP. In what form this conflict will come out in future and how it will affect the government led by Modi will be clear in future.
There is no doubt that the government to be formed under Modi leadership with the support of small regional parties will not be of permanent nature. The very parties and their leaders, on whose support Modi will form government, are unreliable and they have been already defamed in India politics. These supporting parties have been bargaining for important ministries like finance, home, foreign affairs, defense and speaker of lower house. However, Modi does not want to give these ministries and the post of speaker. He might be so much happy for becoming Prime Minister of India consequently for third term, but reality is that he is in big crisis. The fact is that after this election Modi’s prestige has declined on both with in India and in international level too.
We had already opined that whether the victory of BJP or Congress in the election in India, there will be no change of their imperialist policies towards Nepal. Likewise, we had already mentioned that, there will be different kind of impact on Nepal, in the event of election victory of these two forces. The victory of BJP would have emboldened anti-republicanism and anti-secular reactionary forces in Nepal. In the event of the opposition parties’ victory, despite their imperialist attitude to Nepal, their victory at least would embolden the forces in favor of republics and secularism because they themselves are supporter of republic and secularism in India.
Though government under Modi is being formed in India, it will not be in a position to support the anti-republic and secular forces in Nepal because of its own and weak and vulnerable condition. However, we cannot deny there is no such possibility at all. Whatever form of government is formed in India, it will continue its imperialist policies towards Nepal. So, we have to continue our struggle against that on policy level.
In the recently held election in India the opposition has not get majority to form government because of split in the alliance, and because of it some of parties left the alliance before the election. However, in comparison to the past, opposition has become stronger in India. So, Modi government would not be in a position to amend the constitution particularly in the light of increased strength of opposition parties. Likewise, Narendra Modi would not succeed in establishing dictatorial rule and extending Hindutwa policy forcefully and arbitrarily. In this sense, recently held election in India holds positive aspect, though partially.
Dated: June 7th, June
Mohan Bikram Singh
General Secretary
NCP (Mashal)
