Pinarayi Vijayan gestures during the 92nd Sivagiri pilgrimage in Thiruvananthapuram.
Credit: PTI Photo
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's attack against the alleged attempts to frame social reformer Sree Narayana Guru as an advocate of Sanatana Dharma could be considered as a bid to plug the flow of CPI(M)'s Hindu-Ezhava vote banks to the BJP in Kerala.
For that reason, the BJP has launched a counter attack against Vijayan accusing him of insulting only Hindu sentiments and not other religions.
It was while inaugurating the annual pilgrimage of Sivagiri Mutt in Thiruvananthapuram founded by Sree Narayana Guru on Tuesday that Vijayan said that an organised attempt to portray Guru as proponent of Sanatana Dharma was going on.
"Guru was neither a proponent nor a spokesperson of Sanatana Dhamra, but was a saint who revolutionalised it and advocated for a new age dharma for modern times. It was beyond castes and religion. He advocated for betterment of humankind irrespective of religion and castes," said Vijayan.
Reacting to Vijayan's remarks, BJP leader and former union minister of state V Muraleedharan said that the CPI(M) leader was insulting Sanatana Dharma with the aim of getting vote bank support from forces that work against the nation's interest. He is not making any such insulting remarks about other religions. It is part of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc's strategy. The Congress is also speaking against Sanatana Dharama," Muraleedharan said.
But Vijayan said that he stuck to his stand and rejected BJP's allegations of playing vote bank politics.
The fresh row in Kerala over Sanatana Dharma could be seen as the outcome of the flow of votes from CPI(M)'s strongholds to the BJP.
The BJP has been trying to make inroads into the Hindu-Ezhava vote banks, which were considered as traditional vote banks of the left parties.
Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), a political party initiated by Sree Narayana Dharama Paripalanayogam (SNDP) leadership, is a key coalition partner of BJP in Kerala.
After its poor performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections the CPI(M) itself had evaluated that a drift in its Ezhava vote bank towards BJP was proving costly. Hence the party decided to launch a political and ideological campaign to resist it.
It could be in this backdrop that Vijayan used the inaugural session of the Sivagiri pilgrimage itself to counter BJP's attempts to woo the Ezhava vote banks.
Hindu-Ezhava, which is an OBC community, is the largest Hindu community in Kerala constituting about 23 per cent of state's population.