While the UDF leaders began efforts to mend fences with Christian community leaders on Tuesday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan seems to have taken the manifesto preparation for the 2021 Assembly polls to an advanced stage.
During the Thrissur leg of his 'Kerala Paryadanam', the Chief Minister told reporters that he had been collecting diverse opinions from a wide cross section of people, including experts, on ways to move forward. “The LDF government is confident of surging ahead toward the creation of a New Kerala (Nava Keralam). These views we are now collecting from all sections of people will provide the necessary direction to achieve this surge," the chief minister said.
The 'Kerala Paryadanam', which began on December 22, has now covered 11 districts.
The chief minister said it was usual for the LDF to mobilise knowledge through various programmes like Kerala Study Congress and state-level marches (jathas) before the elections. “But such mass programmes were not practical during the time of COVID-19,” he said. “That is also why we are conducting Kerala Paryadanam this year,” he said.
Pinarayi's rise in stature
The chief minister seems to have also grown statesmanly after the victory in the local body polls. He betrayed not a hint of political insecurity when he was asked about the mediation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Orthodox-Jacobite dispute.
The chief minister had tried and failed and now it looked like the BJP was gradually taking over the responsibility of settling the crisis. The prime minister has already deputed Mizoram Governor P Sreedharan Pillai and Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan to hold further talks with the warring Christian factions.
The CM still appeared unflappable. “There is nothing wrong in the prime minister's intervention. The Church dispute is turning out to be a major law and order issue. The prime minister's interest is only welcome. I don't think politics is involved,” he said.
League's predicament
On the other hand, UDF leader and Indian Union Muslim League national general secretary P K Kunhalikutty on Tuesday met Baselios Cleemis, Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, to urgently stem what looks like the gradual distancing of the Christian community from the UDF.
The local body polls had seen traditional UDF strongholds in Central Travancore ditching their candidates.
With the Christian community, too, raising the spectre of 'love jihad' and the suspicions certain Christian groups have about the Muslim community have prompted the UDF to pick Kunhalikutty to lead the 'restoration mission'. The League leader will be meeting more Bishops and Christian leaders in the days to come.
Blot on UDF
The UDF's electoral pact with Jamaat-e-Islami's Welfare Party of India during the local body polls had made it easy for the LDF to brand the League an extremist outfit. Kunhalikutty's job is to erase this stain, and make his party and Front look uncompromisingly secular.
The Chief Minister, however, looks far ahead in the game. In none of his 'Kerala Paryadanam' meetings, he has invited leaders of outfits the LDF had termed as “extremist”, especially Jamaat-e-Islami.
