Amit Shah skips Janaraksha Yatra at Pinarayi

BJP State leadership says he has to attend a meeting convened by the Prime Minister

CPI(M) puts up posters at Pinarayi in Kannur countering the BJP’s campaign theme of its Janaraksha Yatra that passed through the area on Thursday.

The Janaraksha Yatra led by BJP State unit president Kummanam Rajasekharan, on its third day on Thursday, covered the much-advertised Mambaram-Thalassery stretch that includes Pinarayi, the native place of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

BJP president Amit Shah skipped his scheduled participation in the march along this stretch.

Shops closed

The marchers, including permanent jatha volunteers, were greeted at Pinarayi by closed shops and CPI(M) posters countering the yatra’s campaign theme that Sangh Parivar workers were the victims of ‘red terror’ of the CPI(M) in the district and elsewhere in the State. The absence of Mr. Shah was a cause of embarrassment for the State leadership of the party. According to BJP leaders, Mr. Shah cancelled the earlier plan as he had to attend a meeting convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.

“Ordinary workers of the BJP are enough to face CPI(M) workers in Pinarayi,” said Mr. Rajasekharan, addressing a public meeting at Mambaram before the yatra began. He said the yatra succeeded in providing light of democracy and humanism in areas where the CPI(M) had denied the light and air of democracy.

A large number of BJP workers from Kasaragod and parts of Kannur joined the march till it ended at Thalassery in the evening. Posters and hoardings of the CPI(M) at Pinarayi countering the BJP’s campaign competed with festoons, banners and posters placed by the BJP to greet the marchers.

‘RSS killed our comrades. No to communalism. No to politics of hate,’ read one poster. Another poster read ‘Amit Shah to Kerala to learn the lessons of secularism.’ The poster also said: ‘Amit Shah, while in Kerala beware…you may stumble on communal amity.’

A large posse of police personnel accompanied the yatra as the march passed through traditional strongholds of the CPI(M). Mr. Rajasekharan and BJP and RSS leaders, including BJP general secretary Arun Singh, visited the house of RSS worker K.V. Remith who had been hacked to death by CPI(M) activists in October last year at Pinarayi in retaliation for the murder of CPI(M) worker K. Mohanan. Remith was the son of slain RSS worker Unnithan who had also been hacked to death in 2002.

“It was very rare that a family lost both father and son in political violence,” said Mr. Singh while talking to reporters after visiting the slain worker’s house. The CPI(M) leaders, including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, should know that their place would be in hell for such murders.