Thiruvananthapuram : Congress leaders in Kerala will stage a prayer protest when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil the statue of former chief minister R Shankar at S N College at Kollam on Tuesday.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president V M Sudheeran has asked the party leaders to gather before Shankar’s statue in the state capital to protest against the exclusion of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy from the function being organised by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, an organisation of the Ezhava community.
Youth Congress, the youth wing of the Congress, will also be staging protests across the state on Monday. YC president Dean Kuriakose said that SNDP general secretary Vellapally Natesan was trying to implement the Sangh Parivar agenda in the state.
The prayer meet will coincide with the function at Kollam between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm on Tuesday, according to Sudheeran. He said that the prayer meet will be attended by senior leaders, including Chandy and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala.
Sudheeran told here on Sunday that there are sufficient grounds to believe that the SNDP has asked the chief minister not to attend the function under pressure from the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. Natesan has become a slave of Sangh Parivar.
He viewed the move to keep the chief minister off the function as part of their agenda to hijack top leaders of the Congress and other parties. The Sangh Parivar is trying to saffronise Shankar, who was a true practitioner of famed social reformer Sree Narayana Guru’s teaching “one religion one caste one god for mankind.”
Sudheeran accused SNDP general secretary Vellappally Natesan of surrendering the venerated leader to the Hindutva forces for his narrow gains. The SNDP, which is a socio-cultural organisation of the backward Ezhava community, has floated a new party for a political alliance with the BJP in the state.
Terming Natesan’s action as an insult to the people of Kerala, the Congress chief has asked Natesan to quit his position in the SNDP and tender an apology to the people. He also sought an explanation from the Prime Minister’s office on the issue. The issue has also found resonance among Left parties. The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) has condemned SNDP leader’s action. P K Gurudasan, CPI (M) MLA from Kollam, has opted out of the function to express solidarity with the chief minister.
Kolam M P, N K Premachandran, who belongs to the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF), has also decided not to take part in the function in which the chief minister was unwelcome. Premachandran said the decision was against not only democratic but also constitutional propriety.
