As many as 13 activists of the Kerala Students Union (KSU) - the student organisation of the Congress -- were taken into custody in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday night when they arrived with black flags to protest against visiting Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa.
Yediyurappa was in the city to pray at Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple.
The students were agitating against the Yediyurappa government's decision to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). They waved the black flags at around 8 pm when the Chief Minister reached Thampanoor after his temple visit.
The KSU workers also expressed anger over the 7-hour detention of Kerala journalists by the Mangalore police last week. The journalists who had gathered in Mangalore to report on autopsy of two people killed in anti-CAA protests, were held by the police despite having media cards.
KSU leader Rahul told IANS that the police were tight lipped about Yediyurappa's time of arrival.
“As the temple had been cordoned, we decided to stage protest at the hotel where he was staying,” said Rahul. “We would wave black flags when he would visit another temple in Kannur,” he added.
Meanwhile, senior leaders of the Congress party in Kerala are also taking a stand against the state Governor after he supported the CAA.
Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan stayed away from a commemoration programme for former Chief Minister K Karunakaran, after he was asked to. Congress leader (of Opposition) Ramesh Chennithala wrote letter to the Governor’s office asking him not to attend the function he was previously invited for. The commemoration meeting for Karunakaran, a doyen of Kerala politics, was held in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday evening.
Both the Congress and the Left strongly criticised the Governor for supporting the Citizenship Amendment Act, with the Congress saying the Governor had ‘stooped to the level of a BJP spokesperson’. K Muraleedharan, Vadakara MP and son of K Karunakaran, also attacked the Governor ‘for not acting with the dignity that the post demands’.