Comments
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s proposed show of strength on January 1, 2019, in which a Vanitha Mathil (women’s wall) will be rolled across Kerala in support of Sabarimala’s cause, is gathering political heat and dust.
Lakhs of women will line up the State’s main street to announce solidarity with the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s resolve to implement the Supreme Court’s verdict allowing women of all ages access to the shrine.
Opposition charge
Hectic efforts are underway with the CPI(M), which leads the LDF front, sparing no efforts to deploy its organisational machinery to ensure that the women’s wall is a success. This has invited accusations from the Opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) that the ruling LDF is tapping into the State exchequer to fund what is largely its political show of strength.
While the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam supremo and Ezhava community leader Vellappally Natesan has extended full support for the programme, his counterpart in the Nair Service Society (NSS) has rebuffed Pinarayi.
Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, State Secretary of the CPI(M), has ridiculed the NSS leader G Sukumaran Nair, and said that the latter was slowly leading himself and his community into the BJP-NDA-RSS fold. Earlier, 190 Hindu organisations had been invited for a meeting that will later converge on the decision to roll out the women’s wall. Nearly 176 had accepted the invitation while a few, including the NSS, refused.
‘Political colours’
The meeting was in light of a strong resistance put up by the BJP-RSS following the Supreme Court’s verdict. The protests did not earn major dividends for the BJP which won two seats out of the 39 in the recent local body elections.The LDF won 21 and the UDF 12. Recently, the women’s wall has come into focus after a couple of prominent personalities of the film and the literary world chose to denounce it, saying it had acquired political colours and deviated from the avowed mission of uniting people.
Much significance is attached to the programme as it will indicate the extent to which the Chief Minister’s political stock has been impacted after Sabarimala became a full-blown crisis during September-December.
According to Vijayan, the programme will send a message against attempts to destroy the renaissance values and will spread awareness on the issue.
“Various communities joining hands in the effort will make a statement that the country cannot afford to ignore,” he said. “Kerala has evolved to a stage where no crooked mind can hope to throw it back into the dark age,” he added.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.