Recent developments in the ruling dispensation have proved the Nair Service Society (NSS) right, its general secretary G. Sukumaran Nair has said.
On the sidelines of the 99th budget session of the NSS Prathinidhi Sabha at Perunna, Mr. Nair held Chief Minister Oommen Chandy responsible for “upsetting the equilibrium in society and cohesion of the UDF.”
Taking a dig at the UDF slogan of ‘Development and Care,’ Mr. Nair said the present controversies had proved that those in power were taking special ‘care’ to keep Mr. Chandy in power and ‘development’ was confined to minorities at the total exclusion of the majority community from the development process.
“Unless they take corrective measures, things will get worse,” he said. The NSS had warned the leaders earlier on such issues. These warnings were not aimed at safeguarding sectarian interests, but to steer clear of divisiveness in society, he said.
Mr. Nair said the cause of the present break-up between the NSS and the Congress lay with the decision of the State leadership of the party not to honour the understanding arrived at the talks held between former Union Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh and the NSS leaders on September 6, 2010.
The talks held at the initiative of the Congress party, to ensure NSS support during the last Assembly elections, had decided to meet the two demands made by the society, he said.
The first was for ensuring reservation and other benefits to the economically backward among the forward communities, on par with the reserved communities. The Congress leadership had assured that this would be met through the implementation of the Sinhu Commission recommendations.
The second demand by the NSS for ensuring the presence of a majority community representative in key position in the UDF administrative structure was to be met by bringing the KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala into the ruling dispensation, he said.
While the Centre failed to implement the recommendations of the Sinhu Commission, Mr. Chennithala was prevented from holding a key position in the administrative structure, Mr Nair said. “It is this intolerance on the part of the Chief Minister which brought the UDF into the present crisis,” he said.
Against IUML
With the Prathinidhi Sabha endorsing a resolution condemning the article which appeared in the mouthpiece of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), decks had been cleared for initiating legal action against the newspaper for the publication of the defamatory piece, he said.
