Diamond Kerala (Vajra Keralam), the year-long celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the State’s Formation, began on Tuesday with a grand function where 60 Diyas representing the 60 years of the State’s existence were lighted but the event lost much of its sheen in a controversy after the organisers failed to invite Governor P Sathasivam and as the three surviving former Chief Ministers stayed away from it as they were allegedly not properly invited.
While Constitutional experts opined that the Governor should have been invited to the event, organised by the State Assembly and Government, as per protocol, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who inaugurated the special programme said Sathasivam was not invited because his participation should have necessitated restriction on the number of guests on the dais.
The three former Chief Ministers– AK Antony and Oommen Chandy of the Congress and VS Achuthanandan of the CPI(M), who had headed the State administration in the new millennium – did not attend the programme organised under the lDF Government though all of them were present in the State capital, Thiruvananthapuram, where the function was held.
“Sixty persons (to light the 60 Diyas) are to be present on the dais for the programme. There would be the problem of protocol if there is the Governor’s participation. There would have been restriction on number,” Pinarayi said while inaugurating the function, adding that the anniversary celebrations would last for a year and the Governor’s participation would be ensured in the programmes to be held during that period.
However, the Marxist Chief Minister did not offer any explanation for the absence of his predecessors Antony, Achuthanandan and Chandy. Both Chandy and Achuthanandan had actively attended the Assembly’s special Formation Day session on Tuesday morning which was held before the inauguration of celebrations in the courtyard of the Assembly.
According to sources, Governor Sathasivam had waited till late Monday night expecting that he would be invited but left for Chennai early Tuesday morning.
“The argument about protocol problem is eyewash. The original plan was to invite the Prime Minister. The restrictions would have been very intense if he had come,” a former Public Relations Department official said.
State Congress president VM Sudheeran said that Antony had been invited to the programme but his name had not been included in the programme notice. Antony himself said he did not want to say anything at this stage as he did not want to stir up a controversy on such a day. “I was invited. But I decided not to attend it after seeing the notice,” he said.
State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan said the failure to invite the Governor amounted to breach of Constitution. A young State leader of the BJP alleged that the Government had humiliated entire Kerala by humiliating the Governor.
The year-long Diamond Jubilee celebrations of the State Formation began with 60 political, religious, social and cultural leaders lighting 60 Diyas to represent the 60 years of Kerala’s existence as a State. It was on November 1, 1956 that Kerala was declared a State on linguistic basis by unifying Travancore, Kochi and Malabar.
Earlier, speaking in the special session of the Kerala Assembly, Chief Minister Pinarayi said that learning of Malayalam, the mother tongue, in the academic level should be made compulsory. “This is perhaps the only place in the world where one can get a degree without studying the mother tongue,” he said.
Pointing out that corrections were unavoidable in history, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said Kerala should gain the ability “to come out of the prison of rusted ideologies” in a subtle reference to Marxism. Referring indirectly to the CPI(M)-RSS conflict in Kannur, he said that there should be an end to the political murders in the State.