D Raja appointed new CPI general secretary
New Delhi: Rajya Sabha MP D Raja was appointed as the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) on Sunday. The veteran leader, who replaced S Sudhakar Reddy, said the party's fight against "retrograde" forces would continue.
"The country is going through a critical period under the fascist regime of (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi. The Left might have lost seats in the Lok Sabha election and might have been reduced to a smaller force in Parliament, but it does not mean that we have shrunk within the country or our ideological and political influence has shrunk," Raja told a press conference here.
"We are the hope for the people of this country," he added. Raja said the Left parties would continue to fight against the "retrograde policies" of the present government.
"The BJP government may have won the electoral battle but not the social or the political one. We want all communist parties to come together. We will have to rework our strategies. That's what our parties are trying to do," he said.
Raja was unanimously chosen as Reddy's successor at a three-day meeting of the CPI National Council, the top decision-making body of the party, earlier this week.
The change in leadership comes after the party's worst-ever performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Reddy, who stepped down as the CPI general secretary due to ill health, was also present at the press conference.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
BJP has history of ‘contradictory alliances’, says BK Hariprasad
Bengaluru: Congress MLC B. K. Hariprasad has launched a sharp attack on the BJP, accusing the party of hypocrisy over its criticism of alliance politics in Tamil Nadu.
In a post on X on Friday, Hariprasad said BJP leader B. L. Santhosh criticising the Congress party’s alliance politics in Tamil Nadu was “not just laughable, but the height of political contradiction.”
He said the Congress has always joined hands with like-minded parties to protect secular and democratic values in the country.
Hariprasad questioned the BJP over several of its past and present alliances across the country. Referring to Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Tripura, Bihar and Maharashtra, he accused the BJP of sharing power with parties it had earlier criticised.
He alleged that the BJP had aligned with separatist and corruption-linked political forces in different states for political gains.
“The BJP, which speaks against alliances today, should first look at its own political history,” he said, adding that the party’s record was full of “contradictions and changing stands.”
Hariprasad also accused the BJP of using central agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax Department and CBI as political tools to target opposition leaders, topple governments and influence electoral mandates.
He further claimed that the people of Tamil Nadu had strongly rejected the BJP and its ideology in the recent election.
“Congress forms alliances to protect the Constitution, secularism and national unity, while the BJP enters into alliances only for power,” he said.
