CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury who was in Tripura capital Agartala on Monday said BJP got a decisive mandate by successfully shifting the people from the actual issues.
Yechury also said that the saffron brigade was able to rouse communal nationalist jingoism using money power to manage the media with propaganda, advertisement along with effective use of technological tools of communication and micro level social engineering.
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Yechury was in Tripura to take part in the preliminary results of the CPI-M in the general election in the State.
“A very decisive mandate for the BJP we believe that this has happened on their successfully shifting their narratives away from people’s livelihood issues which is what had put this Modi government into the corners on the dock for the last two years. Whether it is the issue of farmers, unemployment, the impact of demonetizations, GST and on various other issues people’s livelihood is ruined, so they successfully managed to shift the narratives after Pulwama and Balakot on to the question of rousing communal nationalist jingoism. And this communal polarisation was the main factor and this was accompanied by bringing up a larger than life persona of Narendra Modi leading up to a situation where people were being told that you are not voting your candidate but you are voting for Modi and successfully they converted that,” said the CPI-M politburo leader Yechury.
According to the CPI-M top leader, BJP managed the media with its money to propagate and project its agenda and also used the communication tools for managing and disseminating information at the grassroots level.
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He said, “This was possible because they had huge control over money power and through that a control over media projections and the total propaganda, advertisement which they did because of that money and the effective use of technological tools of communication individually to the people. Accompanied by the third factor is micro-level social engineering where they went into what are the issues concerned to even sub-class level. So combining all these things and of course, they were very ably helped by the Election Commission and this is a very plus factor that added to their campaign. So this is the preliminary reading that we have but in that what was our loss and we lost our vote are the electoral support base and that is what we are examining. Kerala we did, today it was Tripura and tomorrow it will be Bengal and then the central committee will meet on the seventh and take the final decisions on our future course, what are the lessons to be drawn.”
Though he avoided explaining why the results of the election reveals after the Assembly election some 14 months back the Left vote bank reducing and on the contrary, the Congress which had only little more than 1.5 per cent of the vote share in this general election has gone above 20 per cent of the vote, Yechury viewed, “It was the Congress that came down from 41 to two per cent and from two per cent now gone up to 20 perc ent or whatever it is. Now the same Congress people have shifted to the BJP to defeat the Left in the Assembly election, a section now going back to the Congress.”
After the Tripura meeting, the CPI-M leader left for West Bengal where he will attend the review meeting on Tuesday and which are to be placed at the three days central committee meeting at New Delhi to start from June 7 and during which the CPI-M shall come with a final decision on its future course.