The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : UDF to rework agitation campaign

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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

UDF to rework agitation campaign

Girish Menon

KPCC panel to evaluate outcome of stir by Youth Congress, KSU

Opposition front’s stirs have come to a halt
Says it has exposed CPI(M)’s agenda

Thiruvananthapuram: The United Democratic Front (UDF) liaison committee and the KPCC’s political affairs committee are meeting on July 29 to rework their respective campaigns against the government.

UDF convener P.P. Thankachan said here on Saturday that the UDF meeting would discuss the future programmes of the Opposition coalition on textbook row, price rise, hike in power tariff and bus fare and attacks against offices of the Congress and the IUML.

The KPCC’s political affairs committee would discuss the party’s programmes in the coming months with the country inching towards a general election.

The committee would have to seriously evaluate the outcome of the agitations by the Youth Congress and the Kerala Students’ Union demanding withdrawal of the Class VII Social Science textbook.

The main question the Congress leadership would have to answer is the abrupt manner in which the youth leaders had to call off the stir and whether the agitation has enabled it make any political gains. The government has stood its ground on the textbook, refusing to recall it and at best offering to make changes to the controversial portions in the book.

Youth Congress State president T Siddique had to end his stir without even a customary discussion at any level to settle the row. As of now, all kinds of agitations undertaken by the UDF constituents have grounded to a halt. The death of a teacher following an attack allegedly by Muslim Youth League workers forced the parties to shun violent means.

IUML stocktaking

The Indian Union Muslim League would have to analyse the results of its attempts to mobilise various Muslim organisations under its banner on the textbook issue and how far it has succeeded in recovering the ground it lost in the 2006 Assembly election. It had to go on the defensive when a letter purported to have been written by the late G.M. Banatwalla on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal was made public.

The UDF constituents launched separate agitations, to highlight separate issues related to the textbook. While the Kerala Congress (Jacob) and the Kerala Congress (M) took up cudgels against what they called promoting irreligious attitude, the Congress did its best to underplay the religious aspect.

The Communist Marxist Party and the Janadhipathya Samrakshana Samithy did not join the agitation as they did not hold the opinion that it propagated communist ideology. It is in this context that the UDF would have to consider its future strategy.

“We might not have forced the government to recall the textbook. We have been able to expose the CPI(M)’s hidden agenda and the popular sentiment is against this trend,” a senior Congress leader said.

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