CPI(ML) leader’s presence at Iftar party raises eyebrows, BJP, RSS gloat

While senior CPI leader U.N. Mishra described the gesture as an anti-Marxist move aimed at gaining political mileage, CPI(M) leaders said it was a reflection of the CPI(ML)’s degeneration. Other fraternal Naxalite elements echoed similar statements.

But Bhattarcharya has stuck to his guns saying it was a mere social gesture. “By attending the Iftar Party I did not hobnob with fundamentalists or the underworld. If was simply a social gesture. I participated out of simple courtesy,” he said.

A group of Muslims had requested Bhattacharya to attend the Iftar party at a recent meeting organised by the Youth wing of CPI (ML) in Ara in Dudh Katoha Mohalla. Party leaders strongly argue that “it would have been the worst thing to refuse the request of party workers and supporters.”

Senior leader Prabhat Choudhary recalls that in the past too, former general secretary Vinod Mishra had participated in a number of Iftar parties but no had then objected to it. “By simply participating at the Iftar or respecting the sentiments of workers, does not mean that the party has been trying to use Muslim sentiments for its gains. This is ridiculous,” he says.

But the parties most delighted by the controversy are the BJP and the RSS. State BJP president Nand Kishore Yadav told The Indian Express “this clearly implies that communists instead of relying on the proletariats, have now started depending on the caste and community system. The social system in India is so acute that communist are finding it difficult to evolve their own strategy to spread. Just see the case of CPI (M). It is mainly confined to West Bengal and Kerala and is primarily dependent on the middle class people of these two states.”

RSS Sanghchalak Krishnaballav Narayan Singh is more forthcoming. He accused the CPI (ML) of pursuing a policy of appeasing the Muslims. He alleges that of late Muslim appeasement has acquired a national character. “Realising the need to prepare a base among the Muslims, the CPI(ML) has taken this line,” he claims.

He said that it was really interesting to see that leaders of a party, which does not believe in religion and openly refuses religious offerings, have preferred to participate at an Iftar. This simply signifies the change in theoretical approach of the Naxalites, he says.