How Forest Minister Saseendran infused life into UDF's Malayora Samara Yatra beginning on January 25

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Politics is a game of conflicting objectives. In Kerala, it is now played out in the high ranges.
With the local body polls around the corner and the Assembly elections approaching soon after, the Congress and the UDF's objective is to mobilise the high ranges in its favour. Nearly 60 Assembly seats in Kerala have at least a portion of the high ranges passing through them. The 'Malayora Samara Yatra' from January 25 to February 5 led by Opposition Leader V D Satheesan is the first big pre-poll mass mobilisation drive that would be undertaken by the UDF.
The counter CPM objective is to significantly cripple the UDF march through the high ranges. This they are planning to do by blocking the UDF's access to fuelling stations, which is nothing but policy decisions and statements that could be easily perceived as anti-farmer and from which the UDF could freely draw the necessary fuel to sustain its anti-government campaign. The withdrawal of the Kerala Forest (Amendment) Bill, 2024, was seen as a successful way to block the UDF's access to a major fuel source.
However, what was witnessed in the Kerala Assembly on Thursday was a partial lifting of this blockade. Forest minister A K Saseendran, who had consistently argued that the original Kerala Forest Act, 1961, is in bad need of reforms, hinted in the House on Thursday that the withdrawn amendment was too important to be ignored.
"I don't think any one in this House would argue the 1961 Act did not require timely reforms," the forest minister said while responding to an adjournment motion moved by Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan on human-animal conflict. "In fact, the first draft of an amendment to the 1961 Act was made in 2013 during Oommen Chandy's tenure. Read that draft and tell me how that is different from what we had brought now," the minister said.
He said the proposed amendment bill, which had now been withdrawn, was an attempt to minimise the sweeping powers vested in forest officers and not the other way around as alleged. "The Act, as it stands, gives even the forest watcher the power to arrest forest offenders. The amendment took out that clause. Do you mean to say that this should not be removed," the minister said.
Saseendran suggested that the amendment was used by certain quarters to mislead the farmers. He clarified that he was not pointing fingers at the opposition or any political party but at "apolitical organisations" that instigated farmers against the Forest Act amendment and, at the same time, sneaked into the wild and deliberately harmed animals with the clear intention of turning them against human settlements and, thus, cause further problems for the government.
(Opposition Leader V D Satheesan found this amusing and told the minister that wild animals raided human settlements not because they were provoked by "apolitical men" but because their habitats were dwindling.)
And in conclusion, the minister urged the opposition to remain alert to such exploitation of farmers and support the government to bring about the necessary changes in the forest law. "We should come together for these changes. We should make these changes," Saseendran said.
The Opposition Leader pounced on this seemingly conflicting approach to the Forest Act Amendment within the LDF. Satheesan said the Chief Minister and the forest minister spoke in different voices.
He said that while withdrawing the amendment the Chief Minister had said that the government was concerned about the possibility of the misuse of power by government officials. "But today you took a position that was completely at variance with that of the Chief Minister. You are trying to justify the amendment at any given opportunity. You said the amendment was withdrawn because we had misled the farmers and not because it was anti-farmer and anti-tribal. But the CM took the stand that no officer should enjoy excessive powers," Satheesan said.
The forest minister was lured into the amendment debate by Mathew Kuzhalnadan. While moving the motion on wildlife attacks in his constituency, Kuzhalnadan deliberately provoked the ruling benches saying that the proposed amendment was proof that the LDF Government worked against the interests of settler farmers.
Speaker A N Shamseer spotted trouble and instantly reprimanded Kuzhalnadan. "Why do you want to refer to a bill that has been withdrawn. Stick to your topic (wildlife attacks)," the Speaker said. But by then the forest minister was sufficiently provoked to provide necessary fuel to electrify Satheesan and team as they embark on the Malayora Samara Yatra in two days time.