What is your take on reports of growing influence of RSS-BJP in Kerala?Yes, we have noted that in our Lok Sabha election review that they have made some advances in the South as a whole. In Kerala too that is reflected in terms of the percentage of votes that they (NDA) got. That is BJP+. They’ve got some smaller parties as allies, who got 19 per cent votes. For the first time, they have bagged so many votes. We have observed that in Kerala the Lok Sabha pattern does not come the same way as in the assembly. We have taken note of this and have already discussed steps on how to counter the influence of the activities of the BJP and RSS.Left unity is something the CPM has been pitching for some time now. Do you think the CPI and CPI-ML will stand in the way of Left unity?No, they do not stand in the way. It is a fact that after we got weakened in Bengal and Tripura; the Left’s clout or influence in the national politics got reduced. Therefore, Left unity, which was there at that time, has weakened now. So our effort now is to revive the Left as a whole. It’s not just CPM. Therefore, we need Left unity, united efforts and united activities, and united movements. We are working towards that also. Just after the budget, we gave a call for an all-India protest and campaign on the provisions of the budget. We have earlier come out together on Israel’s attack on Gaza. On various issues, the Left parties are moving unitedly. But we want to broaden this and make it a more enduring effort. After our party congress, we will take up this also with renewed vigour.Do you think sticking to a puritan theoretical discourse will help mainstream Communist parties to broaden acceptance?Puritanical, our political understanding is clear that the agenda is not to bring in socialism in the country immediately. We are for an alternative system which we call socialism. We are not fighting for that first. Our first task is to fight against the BJP-RSS and the right wing force that they represent. For that we are talking about forging the broadest unity. We just talked about INDIA bloc. Why are we in the bloc? Because we feel the need for this wider unity. We will have our independent identity and role. We have our Left identity and role. We will have our left alternative also over people. Along with that we will work for this broader platform in unity. So where is the question of being puritanical in this?
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