THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The BJP-RSS combine is in an angry mood. Understandably so. The reason for their irritation is clear: Both the Left Democratic Front Government (LDF) and the Kerala High Court have called their Sabarimla bluff.
For once, the government has shed its ambivalence on the sensitive issue. It has allowed the police to act tough on miscreants out to fish in troubled waters’, abetted and incited by the Sangh Parivar.
With the police is getting its act together, the Parivar is no longer in a position to further their not-so-hidden agenda of targeting the Pinarayi Vijayan government with the express objective of ensuring the exit of the only ‘communist government’ the country boasts of.
As the police has slipped into a proactive mode, the saffron camp cannot have a free run of the holy hillock unlike on the earlier occasions when the temple opened for ‘Thula Masa pooja’ (prayers) and Chithira Tirunal Atta Vishesham. The miscreants and criminals in the garb of Ayyappa devotees had indulged in violence as the police exercised exemplary restraint then.
But the police has since then clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Cr.P.C. With the coming into force of the order banning marches, unlawful assembly and group prayers in the form of protests, the BJP-abetted ‘criminals have been kept at bay.
True, the High Court has frowned upon the harsh police restrictions. The real devotees should not be harassed in the name of maintaining law and order, the court observed. The police thereafter lifted a number of restrictions enabling the devotees to have smooth darshan of the deity.
The BJP-RSS agitators are now demanding that the ban orders should be lifted. The police, on the other hand, wants the ban to last at least until the Mandamal-Makaravilakku season is over.
They are on solid grounds. For instance, the Sangh Parivar’s contention is that the government alone is to blame for the tension roiling the hill shrine. The fact of the matter is that it is the refusal of the saffron brigade to scale down or end the protests which is preventing the return of normality in Sabarimala. This intransigence is in spite of the HC orders seeking cooperation of all the stakeholders to ensure peace at Sabarimala.
In fact, the court has been sternly critical of a circular issued by the Kerala BJP leadership asking its trained cadres to reach Sabarimala to keep the agitation alive. The BJP fiat prompted the HC to wonder why training is necessary for the devotees to have darshan at the shrine! To the acute embarrassment of the Parivar the court also observed that since trouble-makers are out to fish in troubled waters, the police cannot relax all the restrictions now in force.
The incidents which marked the visit of Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan to the shrine also showed that the Sangh Parivar is bent upon keeping up tension.
CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has also called the BJP bluff. Kodiyeri offered to have a debate on the Sabarimala issue on one condition: the Parivar must end their agitation. But the saffron camp won’t oblige for the simple reason that end of the agitation won’t suit their purpose.
No doubt pressure is mounting on the Parivar with a slew of petitions piling up before the HC. The court is taking up a number of petitions on Monday. Likewise, the Supreme Court will also shortly hear a contempt petition against Kerala BJP president P S Sreedharan Pillai and the chief tantric Kandararu Rajeevaru.
It is the mounting frustration at having been thwarted from freely pursuing their sinister political agenda which has unnerved and upset the BJP-RSS duo. Hence their move to give a new twist to the agitation. In view of the belligerent mood of the saffron camp, the government cannot completely lift the ban orders now in force at Sabarimala. Peace will prevail only if the Parivar cooperates. So far they have not shown any sign or willingness to do so. This being the ground reality, peace will continue to elude the holy hillock. (IPA Service)
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