The BJP in Kerala has announced a rath yatra to drum up popular support for its campaign to perpetuate customs and rituals at the Sabarimala shrine.

The party expects the yatra to turn its fortunes around in Kerala, where the Congress-ruled United Democratic Front (UDF) and the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) have ruled by turn since the State’s inception.

Amit Shah’s call

BJP national president Amit Shah’s call to ‘pull down the Left government’ during his visit to the State last weekend has only emboldened the party to go the whole hog.

The yatra will be spearheaded by State BJP president PS Sreedharan Pillai and the president of NDA partner Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), Thushar Vellappally.

It will begin on November 8 from the northern-most district of Kasaragod and culminate at Pathanamthitta on November 13, also the day on which the Supreme Court will consider a batch of review petitions in the Sabarimala case.

The Congress also has pushed the cause of the devotees, prompting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the rest of the State leadership of the CPI(M) to dub it as a proxy for the BJP and the RSS.

Spot of bother

Meanwhile, Ezhava supremo Vellappally Natesan, father of the BDJS president, has chosen to disassociate himself from the protest despite Shah’s call to the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam for support.

The senior Vellappally, general secretary of SNDP, has publicly appreciated Vijayan’s leadership of the LDF government.

The Yogam represents the collective strength of the backward but numerically significant Ezhava community, and is a big source of support for Vijayan as he takes on the BJP over the Sabarimala issue.