As the grand finale of the campaign for the bye-election scheduled from Thrikkakkara assembly constituency in Ernakulam district is hardly hours away, a sense of fear has gripped the ruling CPI(M). Despite the 24X7 presence of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the constituency to spearhead the campaign and the support extended by the party-controlled Kerala media, Dr Jo Joseph, the party candidate is found wanting and fretting and fuming to maintain speed with the Congress candidate Uma Thomas and the BJP’s A N Radhakrishnan. The poll is scheduled for May 31.
Some incidents like the anti-Hindu and anti-Christian slogans raised in a rally organized by Popular Front of India, a dreaded Islamic outfit has shocked the literary State of Kerala. In a well calculated move the PFI leadership had trained a ten-year old boy to raise the slogan “beware Hindus and Christians! Hindus, stock all your houses with rice and rice flower while the Christians can stock yours with incandescence. Don’t you remember the scenes in the movie Kashmir Files.”
This was the slogan that reverberated across the rally and the slogans were repeated by the entire rallyists. The Hindus conduct the last rites of the family members by showering the body with rice and rice flower while the Christians use incandescence during the funeral rites of their departed ones. The priests and vergers with the smoking incandescence walk behind the coffin carrying the body and sing Hail Mary.
The PFI leadership knew well that the police would not be able to take any action against them as there is no provision in the Indian Penal Code to arrest a ten-year old boy for trying to push a communally sensitive slogan that has the potential to create a holocaust. It was because of a nation-wide controversy that the CPI(M) government took into custody the father of the boy who works as a butcher.
In addition to this, the chief minister got 71-year old veteran legislative assembly member P C George on charges of making communally venomous
speech while addressing the Hindus. “I did not tall anything against any community members. The chief minister does not want me to campaign at Thrikkakkara because if I campaign, the party candidate would lose,” George told media persons at Irattupetta, his hometown.
Though the Thiruvananthapuram Police officials had asked George to make himself available for questioning at the capital city on Sunday morning, the veteran law maker scoffed at them and said he would not be able to come on Sunday. “I had told them that I was ready to meet them on any other days but not today,” George told reporters on Sunday morning.
In another jolt to the CPI(M), George campaigned the whole of Sunday in the constituency. In a major development, the Cristian Alliance for Social Action, an umbrella organization of all denominations of the Church issued a statement on Saturday night asking the entire Christians to vote for the BJP candidate Radhakrishnan. Kevin Peter, convener, CASA, said in a statement that the safety of Christians in the State is at stake and hence the only option is to elect the BJP candidate.
Prof Stanly Sebastian, remined the Christians in the State that they should understand that the community is being pushed out of the State. Many Christians have migrated from Kerala and had it not been for Narendra Modi’s leadership, the Christians would have been subjected to massive pogrom in the State. “We should vote for BJP candidate because it was the Hindus and the BJP which saved us from ruin during the last 2000 years,” said Prof Sebastian.
Meanwhile the video controversy in which two persons were caught in a compromising position has come as a shocker to the CPI(M). Though the mainstream media remained silent and indifferent to the video, the CPI(M) got many arrested in connection with the video controversy despite its claim that the video was fake.
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