The Welfare Party of India’s (WPI) declaration of support for the United Democratic Front (UDF) in the high-stakes Nilambur Assembly byelection has sparked off a political slugfest between the opposing campaigns over the touchy question of “courting communal forces for electoral gain.”
Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretary M. V. Govindan stated in Malappuram that the WPI was the “islamist Jamaat-e-Islami’s political arm”, and its unconditional support for the UDF highlighted the Opposition’s desperation to seek the help of fundamentalist outfits on either side of the religious spectrum to bolster its “faltering and infighting-riven campaign”.
Mr. Govindan said the “Jamaat-e-Islami-Congress-Bharathiya Janata Party rainbow concord” in Nilambur was the latest example of majority and minority communal forces working in conjunction against the LDF, with the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) playing second fiddle.
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“The Hindu majoritarian Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Jamaat-e-Islami share a symbiotic relationship. Their incendiary politics of hate and divisiveness surcharge their respective ideologies. For the UDF, the Sangh Parivar’s and Jamaat-e-Islami’s support is an ill wind that blows no good”, he added.
