New Delhi, Dec 27 : Less than a week after Narendra Modi's stupendous return to power in Gujarat, CPI (M) leader Prakash Karat held the Congress responsible for its disastrous performance in the State Assembly polls accusing the grand old party of failing to counter Modi's communal brand of politics.

"The Gujarat election results underline the necessity for an uncompromising struggle against the Hindutva variety of communalism. Such a platform has to be built up in the state and forces rallied around it. The Congress party, as the main opposition in Gujarat, has shirked doing so," Karat writes in an article in the forthcoming issue of party organ People's Democracy.

He termed the Congress party's strategy of not raising anti-communal issues fearing polarisation as "short-sighted and harmful".

Though Karat said that the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani is wrong in his assessment that the victory of Modi would turn out to be a 'turning point' in country's politics, he urged 'secular forces' in the country to unite.

Modi has been featuring in the CPI (M)'s organ quite often in recent days.

In last week's edition of People's Democracy, there was criticism of the BJP's opposition to minority welfare schemes at the National Development Council meeting. At that meeting, Modi had said that such schemes would be detrimental to preserving the 'social fabric' of the nation.

The Left said: "The BJP is essentially articulating its communal ideology by talking of India's "social fabric" exclusively in terms of the majority Hindu community, completely in line with the RSS vision of converting the secular democratic republic of India into a rabidly intolerant fascistic `Hindu Rashtra'." (ANI)