Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Kerala will begin on Monday afternoon amidst controversies over the dropping of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s name from the list of participants at a function he attends at Kollam on Tuesday. This is the first visit of Modi to God’s Own Country after assuming charge as Prime Minister.
Chandy’s office had the other day issued a Press release announcing his decision not to attend the Kollam function at which Modi is to unveil a statue of former Chief Minister R Sankar. The decision was on the basis of a request from Vellappally Natesan, secretary of the Sree Narayana Trust, organisers of the event. Vellappally himself had earlier invited Chandy to preside over the event.
Several stories have been floating around over why Vellappally had requested Chandy to stay away from the event after inviting him. While the Congress alleged that Vellappally had done this under BJP’s instruction, some reports said the Prime Minister’s office had threatened the SN Trust chief that Modi would not attend the event if Chandy was participating in it.
As per the new programme chart, Vellappally himself will preside over the event instead of Chandy. The development has infuriated the Congress and the Opposition left which have alleged that Vellappally, acting under the command of the BJP and the RSS, has humiliated the people of Kerala by humiliating their Chief Minister.
The controversy worsened on Sunday with Vellappally, also general secretary of the SNDP Yogam, outfit of Hindu lower caste Ezhavas, ridiculing Chandy, the Congress and the Opposition left by saying that the development had helped the Chief Minister, who was wriggling under the solar scam, regain his lost popularity all of a sudden.
“The beneficiary of this controversy is none other than Chandy. All of a sudden, he has become an angel to his friends and foes alike. Those (the left) who had a just a few days ago made him weep in the Assembly (over a sexual charge against him in the solar scam) are now wiping his tears. It seems the Opposition is more troubled than Chandy’s own party,” Vellappally said.
The Yogam general secretary tried to justify the dropping of Chandy’s name from the invitee’s list by saying that the unveiling of the statue of Sankar, also a former State Congress president and former chief of the SN Trust, was not an official function of the Government. “Therefore, my understanding is that there is no issue of protocol here (as Chandy had said),” he said.
Vellappally also said that his critics need not be concerned much about Sankar as the statue the SN Trust was installing was not of Sankar the Congressman. “We know who all had worked to bring Sankar down… We are installing the statue of that Sankar who had worked hard to uplift the Ezhava community from backwardness,” he said.
At the same time, the State Congress on Sunday decided to hold a prayer meeting before the statue of Sankar in Thiruvananthapuram at the time of the unveiling of his statue in Kollam by Modi on Tuesday “in protest against the efforts of the Sangh Pariwar-Vellappally team to communalize Sankar”.
As per schedule, the Prime Minister, who will land in Kochi on Monday afternoon, will address a massive public meeting — Janasangamam — of the BJP at Thrissur, Kerala’s cultural Capital, in the evening. The BJP expects the programme to become the launch-pad for its political efforts to open account in the State Assembly in the April-May elections.
“The BJP is attaching great significance to the visit of the Prime Minister in the context of the upcoming Assembly elections,” said State party president V Muraleedharan. The State BJP leadership expects the speech of the Prime Minister at the Thrissur programme to provide the direction for the party’s campaign in the election.
On Tuesday, the Prime Minister will attend a joint commanders’ conference at INS Vikramaditya off the Kochi coast. On Tuesday afternoon, he will unveil the statue of Sankar at Kollam, 150 kilometres south of Kochi. He will later visit the Sivagiri Mutt at Varkala, Thiruvananthapuram to pay tributes to social reformer Sree Narayana Guru.