After an initial hesitancy, the Congress leadership has decided to confront SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan and his attempts to take the organisation into the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-RSS camp.
The decision to this effect was taken after between meeting Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, and KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran here on Monday.
Political debate
The decision is expected to ensure the Congress its space in the political debate on Mr. Natesan’s political moves that currently revolves around his stand-off with Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan and other CPI(M) leaders.
Soon after the meeting, Mr. Chandy, reacting to Mr. Natesan’s plans, said that there was no place for divisiveness in Kerala society.
The people of the State evaluate the policies and programmes of political parties. If any one believes that communalism will bring political gains, it will only lead to their defeat.
In 1977, the CPI(M) teamed up with the Jana Sangh, the precursor of the BJP, but the Congress-led coalition came up trumps, he said to illustrate his point.
Mr. Chennithala rebutted Mr. Natesan’s statement that the government was pro-minority.
The UDF had gone out of the way to accommodate various sections of the people without discrimination. There was no basis to the allegation that the UDF government was appeasing minority communities. The attempts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr. Natesan to convert the State into a communal madhouse are not going work, he added.
RSS agenda
Mr. Sudheeran, who had been a constant critic of Mr. Natesan, said that the people of the State will defeat the RSS agenda of communally dividing the State. Individuals hardly mattered. Only policy perspectives were important.
Later, at the KSU leadership meeting, Mr. Sudheeran said that Kerala was put on the progressive path mainly on the strength of the tenets propounded by Sreenarayana guru.
Unfortunately, the organisation which had been established to take forward the social reform movement was now being tied to the Sangh Parivar.
The Congress party’s decision to engage Mr. Natesan also reflects the concern of its leadership, which had believed that it had settled the entire issue of minority predominance in its affairs during the first three years of the UDF rule.
