Oommen Chandy’s talks with Hindu outfits end a damp squib

Thiruvananthapuram: The  meeting convened by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy with the Hindu Aikya Vedi on Wednesday to discuss its various demands failed to make much headway.  

The one-and-a-half-hour meeting was held with the umbrella organisation of various Hindu outfits  in the background of the criticism that the UDF government was ignoring the interests of Hindu communities and appeasing the minorities.

The Vedi leaders accused the government of handing out false promises.  “Despite the chief minster chairing it and  nine ministers and heads of departments attending, no concrete assurance came up. It was a farce. They are not keen to solve the issues concerning Hindu community,” said Hindu Aikya Vedi president K.P. Sasikala.

She said the Avakasha Pathrika containing 200 demands of various Hindu communities was pending before the government since 2012. The demands raised by the outfit include increase in the stipend of SC/ST students on par with Muslim students and more land for the landless, including adivasis. They alleged that the government move to bring an ordinance to keep politicians out of devaswom boards smacked of conspiracy. Such issues should be debated in the Assembly, they said.

Minister for the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes A.P. Anil Kumar, who was present at the meeting,  said the government had heard the delegation sympathetically. “But their stand on stipend  was misplaced since the UDF government had given maximum benefits to these sections during its tenure,”  he added. Many of the issues related to temples could not be discussed in detail in the absence of Devaswom Minister V.S. Sivakumar who was in Pampa to attend a meeting. Meanwhile, BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan, who had earlier led the talks with the government as Hindu Aikya Vedi general secretary, said there was no point in holding such negotiations.  “These are just delaying tactics,” he said. The Hindu Aikya Vedi is now planning to go to the people with these demands.

When asked whether he would raise the issue during his forthcoming yatra, Mr Kummanam said that all issues pertaining to various sections would figure in his yatra. Sources said the Hindu Aikya Vedi was  trying to build an atmosphere in the state to suggest that successive governments had failed to address the issues of majority community. With the BJP also raising the pitch on these issues, observers said the saffron brigade was preparing for the Assembly elections 2016.