When Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) was launched on December 5 as the party of Kerala’s majority communities, it was expected to be a natural ally of the BJP but two and a half months after formation, the party is still struggling to decide on its ally despite its necessity to prove strength in the upcoming crucial Assembly election.
Vellappally Natesan, general secretary of the SNDP Yogam, outfit of Kerala’s Hindu lower caste Ezhavas, who had declared the formation of the party at Thiruvananthapuram now says that the leadership is in open as well as secret talks with various political parties. He says an ally would be selected keeping the advantage, such an alliance might bring to the BDJS in mind.
“We have been holding open discussions with the BJP and secret talks with other parties,” Vellappally said the other day. There were people in the Congress-led ruling UDF and CPI(M)-headed Opposition lDF who were prepared to cooperate with BDJS programmes, he said. “But I won’t disclose the details because these talks were held secretly,” he said.
The leader of the SNDP Yogam, under the leadership of which the various majority community outfits had come together to constitute BDJS, says that he is not bothered about idealism in politics. “The age of idealism is dead and gone. What is needed now is politics of opportunism,” he said, knowing well that he was running the risk of being dubbed as an opportunist.
Despite Vellappally’s claims about the “secret talks”, both the CPI(M) and the Congress have rejected his “indirect proposal of friendship” (as a Marxist put it). State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said there was no situation which called for an alliance between his party and that of Vellappally.
AA Shukoor, Congress’s district chief in Alappuzha, the SNDP Yogam’s stronghold, was more emphatic in his rejection of Vellappally’s “proposal”. “The Congress does not want such an alliance. Vellappally need not come to the Congress with this idea. We have already conveyed our stand to the Kerala PCC leadership,” said Shukoor.
A section in the Kerala BJP is viewing Vellappally’s new stand as a strategy formulated by the shrewd businessman in him. This section thinks that his bargaining has exceeded the limits of decency and that there is no need to tolerate this anymore. The official BJP leadership has already adopted a position that it is up to the BDJS to approach it now for discussions.
Sensing the danger in the equivocal stand adopted by his father, Natesan’s son Thushar Vellappally, chairman of the BDJS, came out with a statement that the party did not consider the BJP as untouchable. He explained that the BDJS had not held talks with any party so far but had made it clear that it was ready to cooperate with any organisation.
“I am the chairman of the BDJS,” Thushar said, indicating that he, not his father, was the authority to speak for that party. “Vellappally Natesan could have held
talks with several parties. Those talks have nothing to do with the BDJS. He is the general secretary of the SNDP Yogam and the talks he could have held would be at that level,” he added.
When the Congress and the CPI(M) had unleashed attacks against Vellappally over the controversial remarks he had made during his all-Kerala march at the end of which the new party was launched, the BJP and the Sangh Pariwar had come to his rescue, creating an impression that the BDJS could become a natural ally of the BJP.
The SNDP Yogam controlled by Vellappally had entered into an understanding with the BJP in the local bodies election held in November. Though the BJP had put up a brilliant performance in the civic polls, the party is yet to get evidences to believe that this was made possible just because of the alliance with the Yogam.