By Aditya Aamir
BJP President Amit Shah arrived in Kerala on Saturday last, the “maiden passenger” on the “maiden flight” to the “maiden airport” in Kannur, and warned Chief Minister Pinnarayi Vijayan that “perpetrating Emergency-like atrocities” on “ready-to-wait maidens”, mothers and sisters of Kerala will be fought with all the might at the BJP’s command and nothing that Pinnarayi can do will stop the BJP.
Asking Pinnarayi to step down from the CM-ship of Kerala, Shah couldn’t have come to Kerala on a more tumultuous day. Earlier, in the wee hours, the ashram of a “Swami” aligned with the CPM was attacked by unidentified person(s). Vehicles parked inside the ashram were set on fire and a “wreath” placed there, symbolically signally that Swami Sandeepanand Giri was “marked for death.”
CM Pinnarayi Vijayan was at the ashram premises and he put the blame square and plain on the BJP and RSS, stating that the “police will get to them”, whoever were behind the arson at the ashram. Swami Sandeepanand Giri also named BJP and RSS, besides Rahul Easwar, the lead Ayyappa activist protesting the Supreme Court verdict, for the attack on his ashram. “They want to kill me,” he told media.
The Chief Minister’s warning to the BJP and RSS came on the heels of the Kerala High Court directive that “unjustified large-scale arrests” of innocent people will not be tolerated and it could land the state police in a difficult situation from which it will be very hard for them to wriggle out. The Kerala Police has arrested close to 3,000 people, hundreds on non-bailable warrants, in the last week – after six failed efforts to place “fertile women” in the temple – and the arrests are continuing despite the high court warning.
The state police has drawn up plans to deal with the law and order situation in Sabarimala, which will be reopening in a couple of weeks and there could be another spell of confrontation between the police and the ‘bhakta protestors’. Shah warned the “communist government of Kerala to come to its senses” because BJP cadre from all over the country were solidly with the aspirations of the “Ayyappa devotees.”
Shah did not talk of the different approaches to the issue taken by the BJP at the Centre and the State, with the verdict in New Delhi and against it in Kerala; nor did he breathe once of chances of a Central government ordinance to settle the issue. True to speculation, he upped the ante for a confrontation to push Kerala to the inflexion point of Hindu consolidation. The BJP president said neither the LDF nor the UDF can put a halt to the inevitable. The Congress has so far not taken a proactive role in the protests though it says it’s with the “ready-to-wait”.
Incidentally, Kannur is home district of Pinnarayi Vijayan and Shah was also there to inaugurate the brand new district BJP office. Arrayed on the stage with him were family members of 120 “martyrs”, who met their end at the hands of communist rivals. Kannur, said Shah, was the gateway to Kerala, from where the right-ideology will take off to all places Kerala.
The BJP chief later flew to state capital Thiruvananthapuram to “welcome” politicians from rival parties into the BJP fold, quite aware of the effect his visit has left on the already boiling cauldron that is Kerala today. Maybe, he was even in the know that Rahul Easwar, the public face of the tantri-family “guarding Sabarimala traditions”, had the other day revealed the protestors’ “Plan B” to derail the government’s “planned takeover of Sabarimala.
Simply put, ‘Plan B’ is to fight fire with fire, desecration with desecration – a self-inflicted wound and let a drop of blood drop in the sanctum-sanctorum – defile for an excuse to force closure of the temple. It’s a dangerous game of “what-you-can-do, we-can-do-worse” and Kerala is poised on the brink of police-people confrontation. The police have booked a non-bailable case against Easwar, who is out on bail in an earlier case, but is not in a hurry to arrest him though Swami Giri and Rahul Easwar are sworn enemies and there are people who say Rahul leads the “asuras” out to create mayhem in God’s Own Country. (IPA Service)