CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday condemned the release of the Bilkis Bano convicts at a massive rally in poll-bound Tripura, with local party leaders suggesting this would be a key election issue in the hill state.

Yechury called for “secular” parties to unite and defeat Tripura’s ruling BJP in the Assembly polls, due early next year. He castigated the BJP for the rising prices, unemployment, hunger and communal polarisation in the country as well as the “misuse” of central agencies against the Opposition.

However, the crux of his attack was directed at the release, by Gujarat’s BJP government, of 11 lifers convicted of raping Bilkis Bano during the 2002 riots and killing seven of her family members, including her three-year-old child.

“What happened in the Bilkis Bano case in Gujarat? Those who gang-raped, openly murdered.... The Centre gave its approval for their release,” he said.

“On the one hand it is Beti bachao, beti padhao (a central government slogan for the protection and education of the girl child) and, on the other, release those involved in rape and murder.”

CPM state secretary Jitendra Chaudhury, who too addressed the rally, later told The Telegraph that the party would “definitely” make the Bilkis Bano case a key poll plank.

The 11 convicts in the Bilkis Bano case were released on August 15. The Gujarat government has told the Supreme Court that their release had the approval of the BJP-led central government.

Yechury called for all “secular forces” to unite against the politics of hate, violence and polarisation. He said the BJP needed to be dislodged from power to “save” India.

He said that all institutions from Parliament to the courts and the Election Commission had come under pressure to side with the ruling dispensation, a trend that was harming the country’s democratic foundations.