THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With barely a month to go before the state heads to the Lok Sabha polls, the Sabarimala issue is once again coming up in the election scenario. Recently the Chief Electoral Officer(CEO) had directed political parties not to seek votes raising Sabarimala issue which had invited protests from the saffron party. Later, the CEO made it clear that votes should not be sought in the name of Lord Ayyappa.
Meanwhile, the infighting in the state BJP over making Sabarimala issue a poll plank has come out into the open yet again. A day after senior BJP leader and NDA’s Pathanamthitta candidate K Surendran hinted that Sabarimala will be the key issue during the ongoing LS poll campaign, party state chief PS Sreedharan Pillai came out with a denial. He told reporters on Thursday, “Nowhere the party has said Sabarimala will be made the major plank for the LS polls.”
In a clear message to detractors within the state BJP, Pillai underscored the fact the party will seek votes on the basis of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development initiatives. “I’m the party’s state president. We haven’t said anywhere that Sabarimala will be the main poll plank. We are facing the Lok Sabha polls by projecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development initiatives. The BJP will have ‘Still Need Modi Rule’ as its tagline for the polls,” Pillai told reporters.
Curiously, the UDF is also weighing its options on using Sabarimala as a campaign topic in the election. The UDF has not been projecting the issue as a major campaign topic as of now.
Meanwhile, the ruling LDF is of the view that when the Sabarimala issue come up for discussions, the anti-Left votes will be split, which will prove advantageous to Left candidates. The Left has been trying to avoid Sabarimala issue becoming a campaign topic during the election. The LDF has issued clear directives to the grassroots to check debates on the issue from getting unnecessary promotion. Also, leaders have been asked to be specific while discussing the issue. They have been asked to drive home the message that the LDF Government is only implementing the Supreme Court judgment on allowing women’s entry into Sabarimala.
BJP leaders should apologise: Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran on Thursday said BJP leaders Kummanam Rajasekharan and P S Sreedharan Pillai should confess it was the Sangh Parivar which was behind the filing of a petition demanding women entry to Sabarimala. The minister exposed the Sangh connection of Prerna Kumari, who filed the petition in the Supreme Court seeking women entry, with the BJP through Facebook by posting pictorial proof. One of the leaders in the BJP Delhi unit, Prerna is the secretary of the Supreme Court unit of BJP legal cell and spokesperson of the feeder organisation of the BJP, he said in the Facebook post. In this backdrop, the BJP leaders should apologise to the public for creating unruly scenes and unleashing a reign of terror in the streets of Kerala over the Sabarimala issue.