MALAPPURAM: In a tactical move on the last day of campaign for the Nilambur bypoll, leader of the Opposition V D Satheesan has recalled Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s remarks on the ‘holy relic’, which is an emotional issue for the Kanthapuram faction of the Sunnis.
“Just before the Piravom by-election, Pinarayi who was then the CPM state secretary said that the nails and the hair of a person should be treated as body waste. He will not say it here (Nilambur),” Satheesan told a press conference on Tuesday.
Satheesan deliberately raked up the issue to put the Kanthapuram Sunnis on the defensive because they have been very vocal in attacking the UDF for accepting the support of the Jama’at-e-Islami in the Nilambur by-poll. The scholars from the Kanthapuram group have blasted Satheesan for giving a clean chit to the Jama’at. They questioned the Opposition leader’s statement that the Jama’at has backtracked from its earlier stand on theocracy.
It may be recalled that there was a hue and cry when Kanthapuram brought what he claimed as the holy hair of Prophet Muhammad.
Other Muslim organisations, especially the rival faction of Sunnis, asserted that it was a fake relic and challenged the Sunni leader to prove the authenticity of the relic.
Pinarayi made the remark that hair and nails are body waste at a seminar in Kozhikode in 2012. The Kanthapuram group had reacted strongly against Pinarayi at that time, saying that the issue is out of the purview of politicians. Satheesan’s attempt is to remind the Kanthapuram group about the controversy.
Satheesan also said at the press conference that the CPM has the habit of picking up certain issues and figures that are convenient to the party. “At one point CPM raised the photographs of Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat. In Thiruvananthapuram they used the photos of Chattambi Swamikal and Mannath Padmanabhan. In some parts of Kottayam, the party used the photos of Mannam and in others that of Mother Teresa,” he said.