Keeping differences aside, veteran comrade VS Achuthanandan and CPI(M) politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan have now both trained their guns on Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam General Secretary Vellapally Natesan, blasting his attempts to float a third politically viable alternative in Kerala’s political scenario.  Terming the proposed new political party as a reincarnated version of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra with communal hatred and racial pride as its underlying premise, Pinarayi Vijayan propounds in his article written for the Left mouthpiece –Deshabhimani- on Monday that Kerala would for this very reason reject it outright.

How could a party propped by the RSS claim to work for establishing democracy, secularism, socialism and social justice in Kerala, is the question posed by Pinarayi in his article. Natesan’s Samathwa Munnetta Yatra was flagged off with the blessings of Swami Vishweshwara Theertha of Pejawar Math, who had condoned the Kalburgi murder earlier.  The Swami who is a proponent of the Panthibheda concept -wherein brahmins and non-brahmins should be fed in separate panthals- seems to be the one anointed as Sree Narayana Guru’s successor by Vellappally claims Pinarayi.

Pinarayi asks Vellappally to explain how he intends to ensure social justice for all while working within the confines of the four varnas as delineated by Hinduism. Kerala Assembly Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan too did not spare Natesan for playing into the hands of communal forces by declaring that the culmination of the Yatra would see Vellappally emerge as a full-fledged RSS activist. The Yatra, VS prophesied would undoubtedly end up a damp squib just like Natesan’s previous political debacle -the Socialist Republican Party floated on the eve of the 1980 Assembly polls.

Read analysis- Can Vellappally’s Yatra help him create a third power centre in Kerala's bipartisan politics?