Kochi: Congress leaders in Kerala on Monday flaunted a strong anti-Uniform Civil Code (UCC) stand as they tried to resist the ruling CPM’s attempts to galvanise the support of the Muslim community over the ongoing debate on personal laws. Senior Congress leaders K C Venugopal, V D Satheesan, Benny Behanan and M M Hassan addressed media separately in a bid to explain the party’s stand and expose what they called the double standard of the CPM on the issue.
The Congress leaders accused the CPM of trying to turn the UCC debate into a Hindu vs Muslim issue for political gains.
AICC general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP K C Venugopal said that the Congress party was in agreement with the 2018 finding of the Law Commission that UCC was "unnecessary and not desirable".
"However, in our state (Kerala), some are trying to turn it into a Hindu versus Muslim issue and the CPM is championing such efforts. They are saying it is a Hindu-Muslim issue. It is not something that would affect only one particular religion, it will affect the entire nation," he said.
Echoing Venugopal's stand, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly V D Satheesan said, "The BJP is trying to turn it into a Hindu-Muslim issue and create communal strife to gain political mileage out of it and the CPM is adopting the same path in Kerala."
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief K Sudhakaran, however, said that he was waiting for the national leadership's decision on the UCC.
The BJP is trying to turn it into a Hindu-Muslim issue and create communal strife to gain political mileage out of it and the CPM is adopting the same path in Kerala
VD Satheesan
Former KPCC chief M M Hassan said the Congress’ stand on UCC was clear and it has historically opposed the move to standardise personal laws which will challenge the plurality of the country. Addressing media in Kochi, Hassan criticised the CPM in harsh terms. Reacting to CPM state secretary M V Govindan’s remark that the Congress’ stand on UCC was unclear, Hassan said the Marxist party was trying to misuse the issue for political gains. “On one side, Govindan calls upon all secular parties stand together and at the sametime he calls Congress’ stand weird. This is with clear political goals,” he said.
He invoked the stand of CPM stalwart and former party general secretary EMS Sankaran Namboothiripad on Shariath law to say that the CPM had been in favour of UCC. He said EMS took the stand against the Muslim personal law during the 1987 elections with the aim of cashing in on majoritarian communalsim. He also cited the current CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury’s stand that all personal laws including those for the majority community require reform as proof for the party’s contradictory stand on UCC.
Congress MP Benny Behanan also said that his party would resist the attempts to implement UCC with all of its might. “Modi is trying to shatter the secular fabric of the country. We will resist and defeat the attempts to sow seeds of communalism in the country,” the Chalakudy MP said.
The CPM state secretary on Sunday at a press conference held in Thiruvanathapuram had said that the Left party would be organising a seminar with regard to the UCC issue and would invite all parties which are not communal. Govindan had also said that even Congress-ally IUML can attend the seminar, but added that the grand old party would not be invited as it did not have a "coherent stand" on the issue.
(With inputs from PTI)
