Kerala: Congress, ally IUML welcome PFI ban; CPM silent but Yechury says ban not a solution

Reacting to the development, CPI(M) state secretary and party central committee member M V Govindan Master said, “Let the national leadership of the party make clear its stand on the issue.”

Later, Yechury said “politically isolating” such organisations and taking strict action against their illegal activities would be the best way forward. “The BJP president says Kerala is a hotspot of terrorism. If he wants to stop this kind of terrorism, he must tell the RSS to stop its retaliatory killings. Let the state administration take action. State administration will take firm action against extremist organisations, be it Popular Front of India (PFI) or anybody else,” he said.

“The politics of sharpening communal polarisation, of spreading hatred and terror and bulldozer politics was not the answer to strengthening secular democratic foundations of India. It only serves to create an atmosphere for growth of extremist organisations and their activities,” Yechury added.

“A ban is not a solution to tackle this problem. We have seen what our own experience and India’s experience has been. RSS was banned thrice after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. Has anything stopped? The polarisation campaigns of hate and terror, anti-minoritism, genocide of minorities, all these continue,” he alleged.

Yechury also said the growth of extremism based on religious polarisation has to end along with the “patronage” that nurtures it. He said Kerala CPI(M) leaders were not against the ban on PFI, they were only saying that if PFI was being banned, so should the RSS.

On Monday, Govindan had stated that a ban was not a solution. “If communal organisations are to be banned, it is the RSS that should be banned first. The campaign that the CPI(M) has a nexus with the SDPI is baseless. The CPI(M) does not have the view that the PFI should be banned against the backdrop of the present crackdown. If it is banned, the outfit would resurface in other forms,” he had said. The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) is the political wing of the PFI.