 "BJP protest")
Left parties today likened BJP's demonstration outside CPI(M) headquarters to the saffron party "instigating lynching mob" after its workers allegedly vandalised parts of CPM office and retorted the "challenge will be met democratically".
The Left parties observed the genesis of BJP's "aggression" against the Front is due to its "failure" to do well vis-a-vis the communist parties in the assembly polls held in five states recently and "therefore, launching the attacks by refusing to accept people's verdict".
"What Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said yesterday was nothing but issuing threat to other political parties. What BJP has done today at CPI(M) office is nothing but instigating lynching mob on the street," CPI national secretary D Raja said after visiting the CPIM's office post protest.
Describing BJP's demonstration as "a part of its fascist functioning", Raja said the Left Front cannot be "intimidated" by launching "such attack".
"And people of India will not tolerate such growing menace of the BJP. They will rebuff BJP," he added.
Refuting BJP's allegations that the victorious Left Democratic Front (LDF) attacking RSS-BJP workers in Kerala, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury maintained the reality was otherwise in the southern state.
On the clashes between the Left cadre and saffron outfit workers, Yechury said the "BJP workers are also getting beaten up when they come to beat Left workers."
"They are just refusing to accept the people's verdict and they mount these attacks. The attacks are being mounted ever since the counting for the assembly polls got over.
"Clashes are taking place, they too are getting beaten. If they will come to beat us, then they will also get beaten. People will not tolerate this," he added.
Yechury further noted that out of the total 820 assembly constituencies in five states including Kerala which went to polls recently, the BJP could secure only 64 seats as against Left Front which tallied nearly double of it bagging 124 seats.
"And they know this reality. So, moving forward, they are resorting to such violence, engaging in communal polarisation to strengthen their vote bank," the Rajya Sabha member added. On BJP's claims that CPI(M) men hurled bottles at its workers when they staged protest, Yechury said the "truth in the claim can be checked with police", but added his party workers protected themselves "democratically".
Yechury said the Left party has made a complaint to police in connection with today's episode.
CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat said, "No one was injured in the attack. But the police personnel deployed there did not prevent them from coming up to the office."
Yesterday Union Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad had warned that BJP will not tolerate violence on its workers.
