Kerala’s Congress-led ruling UDF on Tuesday virtually declared the BJP as its main rival in the civic poll to be held in the first week of November with speaker after speaker at a leadership meet of the front attacking that party while sparing the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF, the traditional enemy, almost totally.
The conference, held at Kochi, effectively became a function to launch of the front’s campaign for the civic poll, which is being seen as the full-dress rehearsal for the Assembly election to be held early next year, with the release of the general manifesto which promised a ‘Good-bye Hunger scheme’, relief fund for providing medical help to the poor among other things.
While Congress Working Committee member AK Antony, State Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Kerala PCC chief VM Sudheeran and several other front leaders used their speeches to shower criticisms on the BJP, State Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala was perhaps the only leader who felt the need of opposing the left also.
Observers felt that the UDF act of putting the BJP in the position of its chief rival instead of the left was an indication of a major shift in the State’s politics. “It is interesting to see the UDF, which had bagged 42 percent votes in the 2014 lok Sabha election considering the BJP, which claimed only a 10.3-percent vote-share, as its chief enemy,” said a senior journalist.
Accusing the BJP of trying to segregate people into different strata in the name of religion, Antony who inaugurated the meeting said, “The Amit Shah-Narendra Modi team is trying to blemish the secular face of Kerala.” Certain forces were determined that Kerala alone need not remain as a state where communal harmony prevailed, he alleged.
Chief Minister Chandy, who the other day had refused to answer a question on which party the Congress was considering as its main rival in the civic poll, said that no effort to divide Kerala on communal lines would succeed. “Kerala has always taken a firm stand against communalism. Nobody here would support any move to divide the society,” he said.
State Congress president Sudheeran, the first party leader to flay the reported alliance between the BJP and the SNDP Yogam of Hindu lower caste Ezhavas who constituted over 20 percent of Kerala population, described BJP chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Modi as “proponents of political goondaism and shady political deals”.
Referring to the SNDP Yogam’s friendship with the BJP, Sudheeran said, “Some people, who are interested in furthering their financial interests, are now showing signs of being attracted to the Amit-Shah Modi team.”