Kochi: Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has belatedly woken up to the danger his selective silence on rising incidents of intolerance might cause to the electoral prospects of Congress and UDF and make the country restive. He even tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the issue “disturbing”.
Hours after CPM politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan said it was unbecoming of the Kerala chief minister to keep mum on such issues, Mr Chandy came out with a statement, listing as “dangerous signals” the Dadri murder over beef, torching of Dalits, blackening of the face of a Jammu and Kashmir MLA, murder of rationalist Dr M M Kalburgi, commemorating the day of Nathuram Godse hanging as national sacrifice day and the desecration of the memory of Mother Teresa.
Borrowing a term from Mr Modi’s statement on Sunday, Mr Chandy said the beauty and strength of Indian democracy lay in its diversity.
The incidents forced writers to return their honours and President Pranab Mukherjee to caution the nation twice in the last two weeks as they affected India’s image, said Mr Chandy.
Signals emanating from minority-dominated areas indicate that the criticism against Congress’s failure to stand up to the Sangh Parivar has forced Mr Chandy to break his silence.
“Mr Chandy maintained a studied silence over these issues as the Congress vote base is perched on a delicate communal balance,” a Congress leader from Malabar said. “Those who could speak up also did not do it for obvious reasons”, he said.
Now that the opposition has placed itself as the stern voice against the “fascist tendencies of the Sangh parivar”, Mr Chandy fears a slide in its vote share from communities that had backed the UDF through thick and thin.
