Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday led the BJP’s all-Kerala March, Jana Raksha Yatra, on its second day, covering on foot the eight-kilometer stretch between Keecheri and Kannur city through many of the so-called party villages of the CPI(M) in Kannur district, the State’s Marxist capital, with a call to Keralites and partymen to work with determination for putting an end to Marxist and Jehadi terror.
How effectively the message of the Yatra had been conveyed to the people in just one day was obvious on the second day as hundreds of women joined the Padayatra in which thousands of workers and supporters took part, led by Yogi Adityanath, State president Kummanam Rajasekharan, captain of the Yatra, and many other national and State leaders.
“This marks the start of a big change in Kerala’s politics. With the determination with which this Yatra is undertaken, we will prove that the land of Kerala is not a land of Marxist or Jehadi terror but it is the land of development, nationalism and spirituality,” the UP Chief Minister said at a public meeting held in Kannur city at the conclusion of the second day’s Padayatra (foot march).
“There is no place for violence in democracy. If the CPI(M) believes in democracy, they will have to change. They shout slogans in the name of secularism but behind those slogans they nourish the ideology of violence and encourage Jehadi terror. We cannot allow these ideologies of terror to spread through the sacred land of Kerala,” he said.
The UP Chief Minister said that despite Kerala’s spiritual richness, brutal manslaughter was taking place in the State under the leadership of the CPI(M), which was heading the ruling lDF. Pointing out that the maximum number of murders of RSS-BJP men had taken place in Kannur, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s district, he said it was high time this evil tendency stopped.
The BJP’s 15-day Jana Raksha Yatra, raising the slogans “All have to live” and “Against Jehadi and Red terror”, was flagged off at Payyannur, Kannur on Tuesday by party chief Amit Shah who handed over the saffron-green flag to Kummanam in the presence of thousands of activists and supporters and families of victims of CPI(M) terror in Kannur.
Speaking to newsmen earlier in the day, Yogi Adityanath said that love Jehad was a reality in Kerala and Karnataka. “love Jehad is a dangerous tendency. The High Court and the Supreme Court had made observations on these lines. The State Governments should hold investigations and adopt measures to control it, deal with it.”
The CPI(M) was following a policy of terror against activists of rival parties and this was true in Kerala and Tripura where the party was in power and in West Bengal where they were in power earlier, he said. “With this Yatra, we will make the people aware of the misrule of the CPI(M). People are coming out in large numbers in support of this,” Yogi Adityanath said.
Amit Shah had on Tuesday led the Yatra on foot (Padayatra) on the nine-kilometer stretch from Payyannur to Pilathara through the party villages of the CPI(M). Shah will join the march again on Thursday to lead the third leg of the Padayatra from Mambaram to Thalassery through Pinarayi, the native village of Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
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 will join the Jana Raksha Yatra, which would cover 11 of the 14 districts in the State, at different 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 also, from Sreekaryam where RSS Karyawah Rajesh was brutally murdered by Marxist killers on July 29, to the venue of the concluding function.