Is UDF's sustained non-cooperation in Assembly working to LDF's advantage?

The Opposition UDF's decision to persist with the Sabarimala agitation inside the Assembly has given the CPM a chance to paint the Congress and the BJP with the same brush and aggressively project the LDF as the only secular alternative in Kerala. There also seemed to be a subtle attempt by the CPM to at least give the impression that it still wants women to enter Sabarimala. 

By demanding the resignation of Devaswom Minister V N Vasavan and alleging that the Chief Minister's office was bullying the Special Investigation team, the UDF, for a long time, looked to dominate the fight against the LDF government in the Sabarimala gold scandal case.

But when the Kollam Vigilance Court released tantri Kantararu Rajeevaru on bail on February 20, saying the SIT could not so much as find a speck of dirt against him, the political interests of the UDF and the BJP converged. Both lamented in chorus about the LDF government's vengeful action against the 'tantri' and this 'meeting of minds' was pounced upon by the CPM inside the Assembly.

The tantri's "unnecessary incarceration for 40 days just because he refused to support the violation of tradition" was one of the reasons cited by Congress leader K Babu on Monday for the UDF's decision to stick to its non-cooperation in the Assembly. Babu stood in for  Opposition Leader V D Satheesan in the Assembly. 

It is already clear that the CPM strategy is to treat the 'tantri' with utmost irreverence. The CPM state secretary, M V Govindan, had called the tantri a "master thief". The ireverence spilled over into the Assembly, too.

"The government stand is that all those involved in the loot of Sabarimala gold should be hauled up before the law. But what is the opposition's stand? They want the 'tantri' to be exempted," said excise and parliamentary affairs minister M B Rajesh.

"What is so special about the tantri, who is one of the accused in the Sabarimala gold case. As an accused, the tantri has no special privileges that that of any of the other accused," he said.

He said the 'tantri' had two lawyers outside. The UDF and the BJP. "Since the BJP is not in the House, the UDF has taken up the tantri's cause on behalf of the BJP inside the Assembly," Rajesh said, and added: "Using the 'tantri' as cover, they are expecting another golden opportunity to take to the streets." 

'Golden opportunity' was the term used by the then BJP state president, P Sreedharan Pillai, to describe the Sabarimala women's entry verdict while addressing BJP cadres during a closed-door session in 2019.  

Citing excerpts from Pillai's book on the Sabarimala controversy, Rajesh said that Pillai had revealed that the 'tantri' had acted on his advice and closed the shrine for purification rituals when a woman named Rehna Fathima attempted to enter Sabarimala. "Then, together they (BJP and Congress) exploited this golden opportunity. It was their KPCC president (Mullappally Ramachandran) who exhorted them to put down their flags and follow the BJP," Rajesh said.

The 'tantri' and his act of preventing a woman from entering the shrine, in this telling, are manifestations of orthodoxy

Coded in this grouping together of the UDF and the BJP and the contemptuous reference to 'golden opportunity' is the CPM's crafty but indirect attempt to show itself as existing in stark contrast to the orthodox misogynist thinking of the BJP and the Congress. 

Despite its subtle claims to progressive ideals, the LDF government has still not revealed how it would respond to the Sabarimala women's entry question before the larger bench of the Supreme Court. 

In the meantime, till it is forced to make its stand clear on women's entry, the CPM will do all it can to tie the Congress in the BJP stable and this way banish the UDF from the precincts of secularism.

"It was in 1987, when the Lok Sabha elections were taking place, that the Congress first introduced the slogan Ram Rajya," law and industries minister P Rajeev said in the Assembly on Monday.

"The keys that Jawaharlal Nehru threw into the Sarayu river (Nehru had ordered the removal of Ram idols from Babri Masjid in 1949) was fished out by the Congress to open the locks. It was Congress that sanctioned 'shilanyas' in Ayodhya. In fact, it was the Congress that allowed the BJP to use temple politics as a way to further its Hindutva agenda. Now, through the 'Puthuyuga Yatra' (of Opposition Leader V D Satheesan), the Congress is laying the road that will lead to a 'BJP Yuga' in Kerala," Rajeev said.

High-profile desertions from the Congress also came in handy for the CPM ministers. "Now we hear that (former) Assam Congress chief Bhupen Bohra has joined the BJP," Rajesh said and hurled a sarcastic poser at the UDF MLAs shouting slogans in the well of the House. "Is there any guarantee that any of you will be in the UDF tomorrow?"