The CPI(M) has welcomed the political developments in Karnataka and said the BJP’s practice of forming governments after losing elections was stopped by the people of the State.

Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will attend the swearing-in ceremony of HD Kumaraswamy on Wednesday.

After the first meeting of the newly-constituted Politburo, Yechury told reporters on Tuesday that his party’s primary aim is the ouster of the BJP government.

“Four years of this government has given the worse for farmers,” he said. “The prices of petrol and diesel have sky-rocketed, reaching the highest-ever levels. Rural distress continues to aggravate. The rural economy has never seen such disastrous conditions in independent India as under this government’s rule in the past four years. Rural wage growth is the lowest recorded during the last three years. Prices of cooking gas cylinders have also gone up significantly, even as advertisements appear claiming of subsidies being provided to the needy. The economy is unable to recover from the double-whammy attack of demonetisation and the GST,” he claimed, adding that the Centre had concomitantly written off unpaid bank loans to crony corporates.

A statement from the Politburo said the situation in West Bengal was nothing short of outrageous.

“The recent panchayat election has exposed the depths to which authoritarian onslaughts can degenerate and undermine democracy. What the people have witnessed for the first time is the open forcible occupation of counting booths and not just rigging but changing the final result issuing certificates to candidates who were actually defeated in the counting process,” it said.

“In West Bengal, the Chief Minister is presiding over the complete obliteration of distinction between the ruling party, the State administration and the State Election Commission leading to the complete destruction of democracy,” it added.

It criticised the Centre for the proposal by Jawaharlal Nehru University’s academic council to introduce a course on “Islamic Terrorism”. “This will play havoc with the country’s unity and integrity. The wide spread notion is that if at all such a course has to be introduced it should be on ‘religious fundamentalism’ not specifically targeting any one religion,” Yechury said.

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