In a major setback to the BJP in the Sabarimala issue, the party’s state committee member Vellanad S Krishna Kumar and another leader Uzhamalakkal Jayakumar have quit the party. They accused the party of using Sabarimala and Lord Ayyappa as reasons for the agitation and gaining political mileage out of it.
They said that they have decided to cooperate with the CPI (M) which stands for progressive politics.
Ironically, both the leaders were reportedly at the protest venue of the BJP in front of the Secretariat where the party leaders have been fasting against implementation of young women’s entry into the shrine.
"Though there was a charged atmosphere in Kerala related to the entry of young women into Sabarimala, the BJP was not ready to hold even a state committee meeting to discuss the situation. From that it was clear that the RSS agenda was unilaterally imposing; we don’t want to continue in the BJP which has now become a political dead body losing even the last drop of blood," Krishna Kumar and Jayakumar said at a press meet in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.
They added, “The BJP state committee and the RSS leadership had a favourable stand on allowing women between the age of 10 and 50 to visit Sabarimala. The women of Young Lawyers Association are the ones who are connected to the RSS and the Sangh Parivar. They legally fought for the verdict based on gender equality. They had discussed with Sangh Paivar leadership in various phases of the case. When the Supreme Court judgment came, the BJP and other Sangh Parivar organisations unitedly welcomed it. Soon, they changed stand, realizing that political gains could be made out of it," they said.
The BJP, they blame is handling the issue in such a way as to cause communal divide in the society, besides the divide between devotees and non-devotees. "It is not possible to cope with the politics of BJP at any cost. The act of taking the sacred Sharana Mantra (chanting of Lord Ayyappa praise) to the streets and making it as a slogan has created large resentment among the real devotees. Both the Congress and the BJP have failed miserably in the responsibility of being political parties to bring back those organisations, which stepped back from the Renaissance values, strongly to the stream of Renaissance. It is in such a situation that we have decided to stand with progressive politics leaving BJP's protest venue and from the slogans of the Congress. What is relevant is the politics which is capable of protecting secularism and to help those who have been marginalised through alternate policies. Hence we proudly announce our decision to cooperate with the CPI (M)" they said.