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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kerala on Tuesday to formally declare open the national highway bypass at Kollam is widely expected to mark the start of political campaigning in the State for the coming Lok Sabha elections.
The build-up to the event has already seen a lot of posturing over claiming credit for the 40-year-old project, but the State unit of the BJP seems to have trumped the aspirants, including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Bid to claim credit
The Congress-led United Democratic Front has blamed the State government for unduly delaying the inauguration of the project to time it closer to the Lok Sabha elections for electoral advantage.
The State BJP is of the view that the State government has been trying to claim sole credit for the ₹277-crore project, shared equally with the Centre. The 13-km-long stretch links Mevaram and Kavanad in Kollam.
Even as politicking heated up, State PWD Minister G Sudhakaran declared that the Chief Minister would inaugurate the project on February 2. This sent shock waves in the State BJP, which launched a counter strategy in New Delhi.
It seems to have worked with the Prime Minister showing personal interest and agreeing to inaugurate the project on Tuesday. He will also address a rally.
Political significance
A lot of political significance is being attached to his visit, coming as it does after the passage of the 124th Constitution Amendment Bill providing 10 per cent reservation to the economically backward people among the upper castes.
Observers expect the Prime Minister to resort to some important political messaging after passage of the Amendment Bill has elicited warm response from the Nair Service Society, the major social grouping of the community.
The Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam of the backward but numerically strong Ezhava community may have demurred, but its political wing Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) is already a constituent of the State unit of the NDA.
Sources expect that both the SNDP and BDJS could be brought around to make NDA a formidable force in the State, though it could take some doing, given specific circumstances. For one, the SNDP does not see eye-to-eye with the NSS.
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