Kochi: The 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be all about India that is Bharat and the Opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will win it by uniting the people of the country, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury said here on Thursday.
The Marxist leader exuded confidence at the Manorama News Conclave 2023, which discussed the theme “India: The Future Story”.
“The elections will be about India that’s Bharat. Our slogan is “Judega Bharat, jeetega INDIA”. Our slogan is not India vs Bharat. We will unite India, we will unite Bharat, and INDIA will win,” Yechury said in response to a question on the Opposition parties coming together to prevent Narendra Modi’s BJP coming to power for a third term.
Asked if the ambition to vote Modi out is the only factor that keeps the Opposition parties together, Yechury said it’s the people that glue the alliance.
“The actual glue is the people of India. Never has any Opposition unity come up with a strong alternative except when the people from below exerted pressure on them,” he said, citing the Janata Party experiment of 1977 and the UPA alliance of 2004-14. He said a similar situation exists now.
In his address and the interaction with R Prasannan, Resident Editor, Malayala Manorama, Delhi, that followed, Yechury said the Left’s role in Indian politics is to realise the idea of the nation as a secular democratic republic and to drive the country towards an egalitarian and equal society.
“We need the unity of all those committed to the secular democratic idea of India. The formation of the INDIA platform was part of it,” he said.
“You have to measure the influence of Left from two yardsticks. One is electoral. Electorally there has been a setback. But the other yardstick is the ability to influence the national agenda through popular struggles and people’s movements and safeguard the character of the republic. All the major issues in the past few years that dominated nationally has been the contribution of the Left,” he said, citing the farmers’ struggle and the protests against the privatisation of national assets.
