Pinarayi Vijayan interview | ‘Should India continue to remain as secular democratic nation or a religious state like Afghanistan?’

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan discusses the significance of the 2024 Parliamentary elections and secular democracy in India.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan hit the campaign trail on March 30 for a 24-day whirlwind tour of Kerala’s 20 Lok Sabha constituencies.

In an e-mail interview with The Hindu on March 29, Mr. Vijayan articulated the pivotal nature of the 2024 Parliamentary elections. He underscored that the Parliamentary elections were a referendum on “preserving India’s secular democracy” and little else. 

Mr. Vijayan said it was reductive to depict the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) staunch resistance to the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act as a “question about minority or majority”. Instead, the “question is about secularism”, he added. 

He said the Congress’s disintegration was not in the LDF’s interest. However, pursuing a soft Hindutva line would not keep the more extreme Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from the door. He said defections from secular and democratic parties empowered the right wing, which was disconcerting. 

Mr. Vijayan said that Rahul Gandhi would have no effect in 2024. The people of Wayanad would evaluate him for his work as an MP, which was hardly any. Mr. Vijayan said the Congress and the BJP’s recriminatory campaigns would not affect the hustings.