The Hindu : Kerala News : Sudhakaran brushes aside challenges

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Kerala

Sudhakaran brushes aside challenges

Staff Reporter

On conducting Poonthanam festival

G.Sudhakaran

MALAPPURAM: Devaswom Minister G. Sudhakaran has brushed aside the challenge raised by leaders of the Poonthanam Kshetra Samrakshana Samiti about the conducting of the Poonthanam Festival.

“Let’s see who is going to hold the festival against the plans of the Guruvayur Devaswom,” he told newspersons during his visit to the Keramrith Coconut Oil unit run by Kodur Service Cooperative Bank at Chemmankadavu near here on Thursday.

Mr. Sudhakaran said he would appreciate it if N.M. Kadamban Namboothiripad, State president of the Kerala Kshetra Samrakshna Samiti, who spearheads the Poonthanam Kshetra Samrakshana Samiti against the Poonthanam committee headed by Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders, desired to genuinely conduct the literary festival in the name of the poet.

The Minister pooh-poohed the demand for the resignation of Guruvayur Devaswom chairman Thottathil Ravindran.

“Mr. Ravindran will complete his term as chairman of Guruvayur Devaswom. He has been ruling the temple quite efficiently,” he said.

Mr. Sudhakaran challenged the leaders of the Kerala Kshetra Samrakshana Samiti to declare the number of temples they protected in the State.

He said it was during the United Democratic Front (UDF) rule that communal forces started interfering in the conduct of the Poonthanam literary festival.

Mr. Sudhakaran, who also holds charge of the Coir and Cooperation portfolios, examined the Keramrith Coconut Oil unit and discussed the possibilities of exporting coconut oil with officials of Kodur Service Cooperative Bank.

The plant, set up at a cost of Rs.56 lakh, produces coconut oil from raw coconut.

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