Thousands of BJP workers led by party chief Amit Shah and State president Kummanam Rajasekharan on Tuesday afternoon marched on foot through several CPI(M)-controlled villages between Payyannur and Pilathara in Kannur district, Kerala’s Marxist capital where more than 80 BJP-RSS men had lost lives in CPI(M)’s violence, marking the start of its 15-day Jana Raksha Yatra against Red and Jehadi terror.
The Padayatra (foot march) covering the nine-kilometer stretch between Payyannur, where Shah handed over the party flag to Yatra captain Kummanam earlier in the day to launch it, and Pilathara literally turned out to be the declaration of the BJP’s determination to sweep away the CPI(M)’s alleged politics of murderous violence as Shah observed.
The BJP president will inspire the Yatris and partymen in Kerala again on Thursday by joining the foot march from Mambaram to Thalassery through Pinarayi, the native village of Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, which had witnessed the gruesome murder of young BJP-RSS worker C Ramith by Marxist killers a few months back.
In accordance with the promise Shah had made earlier in the day to the BJP workers in Kerala that party’s national leaders and Union Ministers would join hands with them in the Yatra in the coming days, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would participate in the march on Wednesday on the second stretch from Keecheri to Kannur city, leader said.
Apart from Shah and Kummanam, several top leaders of the party, including national executive members and State general secretaries led the Yatris on the resolute initiative to lay the foundation for “political change”.
Union Minister Alphons Kannanthanam and party MPs Suresh Gopi and Richard Hay were the other leaders who participated in the Padayatra.
Sending across Kerala and the country the message that Kannur should be the focal point of any campaign against the CPI(M) in Kerala, the first four days of the 15-day march are being spent in that district. “This is their fortress. This march is going to be start of their decline. The State cannot ignore this call, energy and human spirit behind it,” said a senior BJP leader.
At the public meeting held at Pilathara at the end of the first day’s march, Amit Shah said the start had been made for political change in Kerala. The crimes the CPI(M) had committed in Kerala were not pardonable, he said by alleging that the Marxists were ridiculing democracy and Constitution.
The BJP chief reminded his party workers that the mission would not end with the end of the Jana Raksha Yatra. The party and partymen could not rest till the violent politics of the Marxists was swept away while Kummanam alleged that the CPI(M) and Congress were humiliating the people of Kerala with their politics of adjustment.
The launch of the march and the Padayatra from Payyannur to Pilathara on the first day were held under tight security provided by hundreds of policemen under the supervision of scores of senor officers amid reports of stone-pelting on vehicles carrying BJP activists from Kasaragod to Payyannur.
Several Union Ministers including Nirmala Sitharaman, Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, many chief ministers of the BJP and senior national-level leaders of the party like Meenakshi lekhi and Manoj Tiwari are expected to join the Jana Raksha Yatra at various stages.
The Yatra will conclude in State capital Thiruvananthapuram on October 17 with a public meeting in which Shah will be chief guest. The party chief is expected to march with the Yatris on foot on that day from Sreekaryam, where RSS Karyawah Rajesh was brutally murdered by Marxist killers on July 29, to the venue of the concluding function.