CPI(ML) Statement on Vice Presidential Election. Even as th...

CPI(ML) Statement on Vice Presidential Election.

Even as the Election Commission of India lies unmasked as a partisan organisation incapable of upholding the Constitution or holding free and fair elections, yet another institution of democracy, that of the Vice President, will go to elections on 9th September.

The Vice Presidential elections by the electoral College comprising Members of Parliament of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, will see a face-off between BJP’s candidate Maharashtra Governor C. P. Radhakrishnan and the INDIA candidate, former Supreme Court judge Justice B. Sudershan Reddy. CPIML believes that this is a battle between a hand-picked yes-man from the RSS stables and one of India’s most distinguished jurists and known civil liberties champions. It is a battle between two ideologies that stand at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Retired Justice B. Sudershan Reddy in his term as a Supreme Court judge cemented his reputation as an upholder of the Constitution committed to the idea of social, political and economic justice. Exemplifying this is the judgement declaring Salwa Judum as unconstitutional and resembling a vigilante group set up by the State. The judgement presents a scathing critique of the neo-liberal development model behind the rapacious exploitation of resources and decimation of the rights of Adivasis while highlighting human rights abuses by the State.

BJP nominee Maharashtra Governor C. P. Radhakrishnan, on the other hand, enters the fray having fulfilled the sole criteria of belonging to the RSS, freshly anointed as the world’s biggest NGO RSS. CPIML calls on all members of the electoral college, particularly from the NDA parties propping this Modi regime, to make this a vote of conscience.

— Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation