KOZHIKODE: In a move to consolidate Muslim votes and garner more support against the BJP in Kerala, CPI (M) general secretary Sitharam Yechury has said that the proposed Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is a tool create communal divide in the country ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.
While addressing a party seminar against the proposal to implement the UCC at Swapna Nagari in Kozhikode, Yechury said that any effort to impose uniformity will tear the social fabric in the country.
“Discriminatory laws must be corrected by consultation with the entire community, and not by imposing the UCC from the top. Uniformity does not mean equality. The CPI (M) stands for equality like how the constitution of India stands for equality,” he said.
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“It is that equality that we need to fight for…That every one of us is first a human being and then everything else follows”, he said, adding, “UCC is a slogan that is meant to sharpen communal polarisation and not to actually achieve any uniformity at all…but to be used as a political tool by the BJP for sharpening communal polarization.”
The seminar was attended by members of various Muslim and Christian groups like the Samastha Kerala Jem Iyyathul Ulema. The mega event conducted to discuss the UCC has a line-up of 28 speakers, ironically not a single woman is speaking during the seminar.
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The Congress party, however, has maintained a distance from the Left’s efforts to mobilise support against the government’s proposal. Congress and its main ally IUML have rejected the CPI (M)’s invite to hold combined seminars over the matter.
The Congress party in Kerala and the IUML is of the view that the CPI (M) is trying to woo the Muslim community in north and central Kerala where the party has already made political inroads during the 2021 state elections.