Despite their extensive anti-BJP and anti-Narendra Modi campaigns during the lok Sabha election, leaders of most political parties in Kerala have started to come to terms with the reality that it is impossible for them now to avoid doing business with Modi and not to accept him as the Prime Minister of the country.
likewise, several minority communities also have expressed readiness to abandon their habit of considering Modi as an untouchable, politically and socially. The only organisations in Kerala which are still carrying on with their uncompromising aversion to Modi are the left and the Muslim league, a close ally of the Congress.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who had in April, 2013 sought an explanation from his labour Minister Shibu Baby John of the RSP (B) for his meeting with Modi in Ahmedabad, has already stated that his Government will not adopt a confrontationist approach towards the BJP-led Government in the Centre which will take charge on Monday.
Chandy assured the other day that differences of opinion over political aspects would not come in the way of the State’s relations with the Centre. “Governance and politics are entirely different. There will be no confrontation,” Chandy said. Many of his Cabinet colleagues belonging to the allies also expressed similar opinions.
KM Mani, State Finance Minister and chairman of the Kerala Congress (M), a major constituent of the Congress-led ruling UDF, has said that it will be unintelligible to remain prejudicial about Modi’s approach to Kerala (which has not elected even a single BJP MP). He said he was confident that the Government under Modi would give Kerala the consideration it deserved.
PC George, UDF Government's Chief Whip and KC(M) vice-chairman, was more confident about Modi’s prowess as the country’s ruler. “Modi will be a strong PM… His act of prostrating at the steps of Parliament had a certain Bharateeyata in it,” George said about Modi’s arrival for the BJP parliamentary party meet last week.
George, who had stirred a hornets’ nest in Kerala politics on December 15 by flagging off the Unity Run conceived by Modi and unveiling a Modi-monogrammed T-shirt at that programme, said that he would now see the same people who had attacked him for his acts then running to meet Modi after he became Prime Minister.
Two prominent Christian churches of Kerala, the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church and the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church, have already showered praises on Modi, saying that their believers have found opportunity to prosper under him. The latin Catholic Church also has extended their best wishes to the Prime Minister-designate.
The Nair Service Society, the umbrella organisation of the Hindu upper caste Nairs and a supporter of the Congress traditionally, the other day described Modi’s ascendance to the prime ministerial position as “a reflection of the people’s recognition of a leader who had proved” his greatness and administrative prowess.