Kasaragod: Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) Kasaragod district President Kallatra Mahin said he has asked the UDF candidate and Congress leader Rajmohan Unnithan to consider wearing a tilak on his forehead to avoid communal campaigns of the CPM and Left organisations. The Congress and IUML are allies and part of the United Democratic Front (UDF).
During the campaigning, the LDF's biggest issue was Unnithan not wearing the tilak and it even tried to defame Thalangara, the resting place of Malik Dinar, one of the first Muslims to come to India to propagate Islam, said Kallatra Mahin.
The BJP and the CPM-led Left Democratic Front have been accusing Unnithan of appeasing Muslims since 2019 when he landed in Kasaragod to contest the Lok Sabha election without his trademark black horizontal tilak.
But when the discussions around the Unnithan's tilak had disappeared from the public domain, the CPM released an ad during the 2024 Lok Sabha election, targetting the Congress leader again for his choice of not wearing the Hindu symbol. The ad was Islamophobic.
In the ad, when the candidate is told that his campaign for the day started from Thalanagara -- a residential area with a high Muslim population in Kasaragod town -- his team members wipe off the tilak from his forehead, cuts the sacred thread around the wrist, and wraps the mundu with the pleats on the left side, the way Muslim men in Kerala usually wear.
The ad was posted from the social media handles of the LDF candidate and CPM leader M V Balakrishnan and Udma MLA and CPM acting district secretary C H Kunhambu. They deleted the post after it became controversial.
The ad was widely criticised for painting the residents of Thalangara as intolerant towards other religious symbols and cultures. "Such opportunities should not be given to the Left and BJP to create a communal divide. That's why I asked Unnithan to consider wearing the tilak," he said
Unnithan had dismissed the campaign of the CPM and the BJP saying he was a staunch practising Hindu and never hid his faith, and he stopped wearing the black tilak because of a skin allergy.