Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan.
Credit: PTI
At a time when all political parties in Kerala are trying to tap the minority vote bank, the ruling CPM suffered an embarrassment as a Christian faction openly accused Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of taking sides.
The Orthodox faction of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church has accused Vijayan of favouring the rival Jacobite faction.
Even though the Orthodox faction has got an SC order in its favour on the legal battle over the rights of churches, the order has not been implemented yet citing law and order issues.
The Orthodox faction is irked after the CM said at a function of the Jacobite church the other day that the government already took steps in favour of the Jacobite faction and it would continue to support it.
The Patriarch of Antioch Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II thanked Vijayan for initiatives like bringing in a law to protect the right of believers to bury the dead in their family cemeteries.
The Orthodox church lashed out at the CM and accused him of taking sides instead of implementing the Supreme Court order.
Sources said the BJP is likely to seize the opportunity to make inroads into the Christian vote banks.
Recently, a priest of an Orthodox church at Nilackal in Pathanamthitta district, Shyju Kurian, joined the BJP along with 50 families. He was subsequently removed from charges by the church in the wake of various allegations against him.