BJP will turn India into religious state: CPI-M

Agartala, March 24 (IANS) If the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returns to power after the Lok Sabha polls, it would turn India into a "fully religious nation", Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Central Committee member Bijan Dhar said here on Sunday.

The BJP, which is backed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in its present five-year tenure embarked on a plan to turn India into a "religious nation" and after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls they would complete the mission to turn India into a "fully religious nation", Dhar said.

He said the BJP has started destroying India's traditional culture, heritage, language, history and education and blamed it for destroying secularism, economy, age-old social justice, federalism -- the pillars of the Indian Constitution.

"Talks have started spreading that after 2024 there would be no elections. It was being done by believers of Hindutva. This is a dangerous campaign in a secular country like India," said Dhar, also the convener of the CPI-M led Left Front.

The Left leader said as the BJP did not fulfil most of its poll promises, it is against holding elections, through which public opinion could be reflected.

"Since the BJP camp to power, over five crore people have lost jobs. In 2018 alone, 1.10 crore people lost jobs, specially due to the introduction of the GST (Goods and Services Tax)," Dhar said.

Since the BJP-led government came to power in the state, thousands were attacked and hundreds of opposition party offices targeted, he said.

In the history of Tripura, people had never witnessed such political violence, he said.