Centre following appeasement policy for vote bank — Brinda

Guwahati, Jan. 27 (PTI): CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat today condemned Thursday’s attack on a school bus by anti-Padmaavat protesters in Gurugram and claimed that the BJP led the Centre is following an appeasement policy for vote bank politics.
Protesters allegedly belonging to fringe Rajput group Karni Sena pelted stones at a school bus carrying children shattering its windows. However, no injury was reported on the January 24 incident at Gurugram and Karni Sena has denied its involvement in the incident.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos, “a bus full of school children near our capital at Gurgaon was attacked by Karni Sena which is part of the large Sangh Parivar,” Karat said.
“Neither the Prime Minister nor any of his leaders had anything to say about this. Its clear that the BJP and the RSS are following a policy of appeasement for vote bank politics as far as the Karni Sena is concerned,” she told a press conference.
Despite the Supreme Court’s direction to hold shows of Padmaavat, the BJP and RSS ensured that it remained banned as they are supporting those violent actions of those groups, Karat alleged.
“I believe this is latest example of intolerance of this government and the Sangh Parivar on freedom of expression,” the senior CPI(M) leader said.
On the OXFAM report that said India’s richest 1 per cent now holds a huge 58 per cent of the country’s total wealth, she said the growing inequality in the economic front under the Modi regime is a cause for concern.
To a question on the upcoming upcoming Assembly election in Tripura, she said people would re-elect the Left Front giving a befitting reply to the “unholy nexus between the BJP and “the IPFT and huge amount of black money being circulated there by them”.
To another question on Himanta Biswa Sarma, who quit the Congress and joined the BJP before the Assembly election in Assam, she said he has now become ‘pavitra’ after bathing in the river of BJP.