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PM to extend a hand to minorities in Kerala

George Iype in Kumarakom

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will meet a number of religious leaders during his year-end vacation in the lake resort of Kumarakom in an attempt to reassure the minority communities that his government stands for secularism and communal harmony.

During the meetings, the prime minister is expected to brief them on the National Democratic Alliance government's stand on the controversial Ayodhya issue that paralysed Parliament's winter session.

Though the prime minister's office had said that Vajpayee's week-long visit to Kerala would be strictly private, Bharatiya Janata Party politicians want him to buy peace with minority religious leaders.

BJP leaders feel that with assembly elections due in states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu in four months, it is appropriate that Vajpayee makes a political statement during his holidays in the state.

Thus, on orders from the central BJP leadership, the state unit has drawn up a list of prominent Christian leaders from Kerala who will be invited to meet the prime minister in the next three days.

Those scheduled to have one-to-one meetings with Vajpayee are the head of the Syro-Malabar Church, Major Archbishop Varkey Vithayathil, Catholic Archbishop Joseph Powathil of the Changanassery diocese, Orthodox Church supremo Baselius Marthoma Mathews II, Knanaya Catholic Church Bishop Kuriakose Kunnassery and Knanaya Jacobite church head Abraham Clemis.

Major Archbishop Varkey Vithayathil told rediff.com that he was eagerly waiting to meet Vajpayee to take up "some of the burning problems that the Christian community faces in the country".

"I want to particularly tell him that over the last few years, atrocities against Christians are on the increase. We want the prime minister to ensure that his government reins in religious fanaticism and intolerance," he said.

Major Archbishop Vithayathil said the Christian community does not want "to unsettle the prime minister's mind during his week of rest and relaxation. But his vacation days are also the best days for us to talk to him calmly without many bureaucratic and political hurdles."

BJP leaders said the names of a number of leading Muslim religious leaders are also being finalised to ensure that Vajpayee meets a cross-section of people from the religious minorities.

"We want the prime minister to assure Muslim leaders on the sensitive Ayodhya issue," said a state BJP leader.

But opposition parties in the state claimed that Vajpayee's proposed audience with religious leaders was part of the BJP's political strategy to lure the minority voters in Kerala on the eve of the state assembly elections.

Polls to the state assembly are scheduled for April next year. Kerala is the only state in south India where the BJP has not opened its electoral account. In the last few months, BJP leaders in the state have been holding secret parleys with pro-Christian parties like the Kerala Congress (Mani) for an electoral alliance.

The BJP leaders are also trying to rope in Kerala Congress leader K M Mani to meet the Prime Minister.

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