NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi left none in doubts on Monday about BJP’s serious bid to overthrow its ideological foe, the Left in Kerala. While the party chief Amit Shah unveiled the plan for padayatra from October 3-17 in the state, Modi gave a call for a nation-wide campaign against political violence in Kerala.
“The scale of political violence in Kerala against our workers is appalling. The BJP workers on the way back their homes in evening and night time are lynched and brutally killed. They are just small time political workers who eke out livelihoods to support their families. But they are becoming victims of political violence of disturbing scale,” Modi is learnt to have told the BJP national executive meeting. The Prime Minister, sources said, spoke for about 10 minutes only on the incidents of political violence in Kerala.
It’s very apt that the party has announced a sustained campaign in Kerala in the form of padayatra from October 3-17 during which the party workers will go to all those places where the BJP workers fell victim to the political violence, sources quoted the Prime Minister has said in the BJP conclave.
The Prime Minister, sources said, apparently sought to further escalate the issue of political violence in Kerala as a big national issue. He asked the party to mobilise campaigns in other states as well where the people from Kerala could be accorded leading role in protests which could sensitise people about the issue of political violence. Modi, sources said, vowed that the BJP will defeat the cult of political violence in Kerala, besides ensuring justice to the victims.
That Kerala is emerging as the big ideological battleground for the BJP was also evident from the fact that Amit Shah also vowed that no matter the extent of political violence, the saffron outfit would spread the footprints in the state.
“Democracy is being strangulated in Kerala and West Bengal. The extent of political violence in Kerala has not been seen in any of the states after Independence. We don’t believe in violence. Yet the party will give answers to the political violence unleashed by the Left parties in peaceful and democratic manner,” Shah told the BJP conclave in the Talkatora indoor stadium, which hosted the national executive meeting of the party.
The BJP is bracing up to mobilise a good number of party workers during the padayatra, which is likely to be attended by a few of the chief ministers of other states. Incidentally, the RSS has also been carrying out the outreach with the Parliamentarians and legislators in the national capital about the issue of the “Left-sponsored political violence”.