Hours after the Kerala police arrested six men affiliated to the BJP and RSS from Kollam, for allegedly threatening and verbally abusing Malayalam poet K Sreekumar, the BJP has gone on the defensive.
The BJP in the state has now accused Sreekumar of insulting Hindu gods in a speech he delivered in Kollam on Monday night. Sreekumar had addressed a gathering while taking part in an event organised by a library, which is said to have provoked the right-wing.
BJP's district committee member S Vijayan filed a police complaint against poet Sreekumar on Tuesday, alleging that the latter had tried to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere by deliberately creating communal tensions.
In a two-page complaint, Vijayan said,
"Sreekumar delivered a speech in which he spoke against the Sangh Parivar in a highly provocative fashion. He spoke in a way that could compromise the peaceful atmosphere and incite communal tensions. He said that lotus blooming from the navel of lord Sreepadmanabha was something that is being propagated by BJP and that lord Brahma's three heads were glued together using fevicol. He also said in his speech that lord Ayyappa was born out of a homosexual relationship. The local people who were there suggested that his speech was in bad taste. In this matter, the library secretary also apologised."
It also states that a false complaint was given against the six persons including BJP ward member Deepu, who intervened to solve the issue. The police had on Tuesday morning arrested Deepu and five others and charged them under sections 294 (b) (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) and 149 (Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) of the IPC.
Alleging that Sreekumar had tried to disrupt the peace in the area, the BJP sought action against the poet.
Kadakkal Circle Inspector confirmed to TNM that they have received a complaint from the BJP. He said that action will be taken after accessing the merit of the complaint.
Meanwhile, BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan refuted allegations that the right-wing members attacked poet Sreekumar.
Speaking to the media, he said: "It is false that Sreekumar was attacked. Nobody physically attacked him. It is, however, true that some of our members questioned him on the content of his speech. But they did not attack Sreekumar."
BJP state general secretary K Surendran accused Sreekumar of trying to gain fame by creating a controversy.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Surendran said that Sreekumar has become a world-renowned poet after this controversy and said that his unsold books will now gain popularity. He also compared the incident with Sreekumar to that of Tamil writer Perumal Murugan, who was hounded by caste and religious groups in Tamil Nadu in 2014 for his book ‘Madhorubagan’.
"Writer Perumal Murugan had complained that an anonymous caller had threatened him and then declared that he won't write again. Then protests followed, cries demanding accountability from Modi rose...people returned their awards! People who did not even know about him organised events against RSS fascism. What started the protests against him is when he said that many women from his village who go for temple festivals at night go there for prostitution. There is no BJP or RSS in Murugan's village. Nobody could nab anyone from BJP or RSS. But what happened? So many of his books that were till then unsold, managed to sell. He became a well-known writer," Surendran wrote.
He went on to claim Sreekumar’s face will now be aired on television channel debates for at least six months.
Although he refrained from naming Prakash Raj, who has been vocal about his criticism against the BJP-led central government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Surendran took a dig at the actor.
"In Karnataka, an actor who does not have any films anymore, is grabbing news headlines by criticising Modi every day. The same model applies here too," Surendran wrote.