New Delhi, March 23 (IANS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS have taken "the most audacious step" to usher in a Hindu Rashtra by making Adityanath Yogi the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, the CPI-M has said.

"They have put in place, as Chief Minister of the biggest state of India, a person who has openly challenged the very precepts of the Constitution," said an editorial in the CPI-M journal "People's Democracy". 

The Communist Party of India-Marxist said his selection "is a clear signal that the BJP-RSS combine wishes to pursue the line of Hindu consolidation as the basis of its future political strategy".

The editorial said that since becoming a member of the Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur in 1998, Adityanath became notorious for his record of Muslim bashing and direct incitement of communal violence. 

It said his Hindu Yuva Vahini "was nothing but an armed vigilante group" and "in his political campaign and in his election speeches henceforth, he has had only one aim - Muslim bashing". 

"The specialty of the Yuva Vahini under Adityanath's leadership was to intervene and convert any minor dispute or common place quarrel into a communal riot. 

"To make such a person the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh can only be a deliberately thought out decision."