CPM state secretary Md Salim said in Murshidabad's Behrampore on Monday that this election was a battle to protect India as a secular, democratic republic and foil the RSS agenda of turning it into a fascist state.

Replying to a question about media reports that a few candidates, who had filed nominations against Union home minister Amit Shah for the Gandhinagar seat, were coerced to withdraw from the race, Salim said: "We have seen this in Surat, we have seen this in Indore. And now you are talking about this (Gandhinagar) incident, Therefore, it is not Hindus or Muslims who are in danger. It is the secular, democratic character of the republic that is in danger...The RSS wants to destroy the pillars of the Constitution — parliamentary democracy, its representative character, federal structure, secularism. They want to eliminate these characteristics and impose fascism on the nation. This is the agenda of the RSS and to that end it made Gujarat their laboratory."

In the same vein, the CPM's Murshidabad candidate said that the BJP's attempt to remove the Opposition from its path in parliamentary election was reminiscent of what the Trinamool did in the panchayat elections in Bengal.

Alluding to symbols of the TMC and the BJP , Salim said: "What the small flower did during the panchayat elections in Bengal, the big flower is doing it at the parliamentary level.... In north India, the BJP first killed secularism and is now out to destroy democracy, and in Bengal the Trinamool has finished democracy and is now after secularism."

The CPM leader also spoke about the purported sting video on Sandeshkhali that shows a local BJP leader referring to incidents of sexual assault as fake and "trumped up charges by the BJP".

Asked for a response, Salim refused to give much importance to the alleged video and said such incidents do surface at the time of polls.

"Don't you remember what the Trinamool did with the Gyaneshwari train accident in the past? Don't forget that Sandeshkhali is about land-grab. Land given to the poor by the Left Front government has been grabbed in Sandeshkhali," he said.

Mamata had blamed the CPM for the 2010 Gyaneshwari train accident in which several people were killed. Later, a probe, however, linked the accident to Maoist extremism.Speaking about the third phase of polls in which he is one of the candidates from the Murshidabad constituency, Salim said that the first two phases of the elections were by and large peaceful and hoped the Election Commission would take adequate steps to continue the trend."There will be resistance on the ground," Salim added.