Preventing Takeover of States by “Fascist Double Engine” is the Prime Task in the Assembly Elections!
Assembly Elections to Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are scheduled in Aptil 2026. The single-phase election to the first three States takes pace on 9 April and that in Tamil Nadu on 23 April. A two-phase Election is superimposed on West Bengal, which will take place on 23 and 29 April 2026. While in Puduchery, BJP is in power as part of a coalition with its fascist ally, Assam is already under the fascist diktats of the “double engine”. Obviously, in the elections for the other three opposition-ruled States, both BJP and its ideological mentor RSS are now engaged in a maddening offensive to capture power by all means to bring them also under the corporate-fascist stranglehold.
In this regard, the role of the Election Commission, which is transformed as a pliable tool of the Central regime, and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll intended to consolidate pro-BJP votes have become decisve. If the 2002 SIR had given six months time for submitting the filled-in forms, now only 30 days are there for submitting the filled-in forms for enrolling the voters. In the guise of eliminating ineligible voters, the oppressed in general, and Muslims in particular, whom the Indian fascists target as their number one enemy, are systematically excluded from the voter list. Millions of disenfranchised citizens who are condemned to live as ragpickers, masons, domestic helpers, and other unorganised workers who live in slums, will be denied citizenship also in course of time, as SIR is widely acknowledged as the precursor to NRC. While RSS-BJP leaders attempt to allay fears of disenfranchised Hindus that they had nothing to fear about it, since they could be safely accomodated under provisions of CAA, the Muslims are not entitled to such consolations, as CAA is essentially anti-Muslim. This is the case particularly in West Bengal, a State where the BJP and the entire central fascist machinery are specifically concentrating their attention, and where many hundreds of thousands of erstwhile Muslim migrants and refugees from Bangladesh having Aadhaar, Voter Cards and Ration Cards are excluded from voter list, in spite of the belated judicial intervention in this regard.
Now, with Election Commission including the administration and police under its control, immense corporate money power with more than 82% of Electoral Trust Fund at BJP’s disposal and backed by a propaganda blitzkrieg together with Godi media, the fascist forces are spearheading their election campaign in the opposition-ruled states. In conformity with erstwhile RSS dictum (as explained by Golwalkar) that federalism is a “poisonous seed”, the ultimate aim of the corporate-fascist intervention is the establishment of a majoritarian unitary regime by undermining the federal structure of the Constitution. As such, even to safeguard the very structure and character of the existing Constitution, it is the solemn task of all anti-fascist democratic forces to totally isolate and defeat the BJP in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
To accomplish this crucial task, and to be very precise, the central focus on the part of all anti-fascist forces and even non-fascist forces, irrespective of their ideological orientation, should be to avoid a division of the anti-fascist or anti-BJP votes in the Elections, since fascism is an extremely dangerous and terrorist dictatorship led by the most reactionary section of the ruling class, now represented by the corporate-Hindutva forces in India. In other words, to prevent a situation of BJP’s ascendance to power in these States, the clear-cut central slogan in the Election should be “Defeat BJP/Defeat Fascism”. Of course, while taking up this immediate and indispensable task of preventing fascist takeover of power in States, care should also be taken by progressive-democratic forces to avoid opportunistic adjustments with both allies and apologists of fascism. Further, while taking up this immediate task of defeating fascists in the Assembly elections, it is also the duty of the genuine Left to be cautious of its independent position of upholding the long-term strategic interests of the working class and oppressed people. In brief, while upholding its independent ideological-political position against neoliberalism, fascism and war, and avoiding any political alliance with non-fascist ruling class parties or with depoliticised and neoliberal apologists of fascism, the revolutionary Left must use the votes and has to go for an uncompromising campaign appealing the people to appropriately cast their votes so as to ensure the defeat of BJP and allies of RSS fascism.
(Editorial, Red Star Monthly, April 2026 Issue)
