New Delhi: Claiming that BJP was using money and material in an "unprecedented" scale in its poll campaign and had exceeded Election Commission`s spending limit, CPI(M) on Thursday sought to know the sourcing of funds saying such massive expenditure escaped legal scrutiny due to "a serious flaw".
"The manner in which the RSS-BJP is pumping in monetary and material resources in the current campaign to ensure the success of its prime ministerial aspirant is, indeed, unprecedented.
"According to some, it is allegedly estimated that the recently enhanced EC`s limit on expenditures per candidate per constituency of Rs 70 lakh has already been far exceeded by RSS-BJP in projecting their PM aspirant alone," said senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury.
BJP`s total expenditure on propaganda and its candidates nationwide was "already more than double of the EC limit... The volume of money and resources already spent are, indeed, humongous - a scale that independent India has never seen before," he said in an editorial in the latest issue of party organ `People`s Democracy`.
"That they are able to get away with such expenditures without any scrutiny is because of a serious flaw in our law. Currently, there is no limit on the expenditures incurred by a political party on its election campaign," he said.
CPI(M) has been demanding a fixed limit for expenditure incurred by a party in line with the limit fixed for a candidate.
Since there is no limit on a party`s expenditure, political parties with access to lesser resources, though with greater support amongst the people, suffer due to the current rules governing the electoral process in our country, the CPI(M) leader said.
"What also merits an investigation is from where are these resources coming? These are so huge that if they are invested in building our much-needed economic infrastructure, lakhs of additional jobs can be created," Yechury said.
"That the RSS-BJP is able to marshal such resources clearly points towards their undisguised eagerness to not let go of this opportunity to control the reins of the Centre in pursuit of converting the secular democratic character of the Indian Republic into their version of a rabidly intolerant fascistic `Hindu Rashtra`," the CPI(M) leader said.
To achieve this, RSS-BJP has adapted the "insidious Nazi fascist propaganda methods to Indian conditions" -- to "mercilessly distort history" and "create an `enemy` as distinct from the identity that they represent - like Hitler`s criminal animosity against the Jews to establish superiority of the Aryan race," he said.
"The very choice of Varanasi as the constituency (for Narendra Modi) nakedly suggests the advancing of the communal agenda," Yechury said.
Why was a former BJP President displaced from this Lok Sabha seat as Modi could have won from any constituency "if indeed there is a `wave` in their favour," he asked.
This was "nothing else but an expression of the worst form of vote bank politics - seeking Hindu consolidation by spreading hostility against other religious minorities."
Referring to the series of Modi`s "gaffes" on the location of Taxila in Bihar or Alexander`s death on the banks of the Ganges, he said, "These are not mere expressions of lack of historical knowledge. These are insidious attempts to suggest that everything that is noteworthy in Indian history has its Hindu origins."
Modi was "also increasingly displaying the fascistic megalomaniac character when he declared that the country is awaiting `Kamal (BJP poll symbol) and Modi`," Yechury said.
Observing that such were the dangers that loomed ahead, he said the RSS-BJP`s solutions to the continuous deterioration in the poeple`s livelihood "are no different from those followed since the 1998 NDA government and subsequent UPA governments."
