On March 11, when the Union government notified the rules for the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, just days ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, there was little doubt about its real intent. While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with an eye on votes, proudly owned the move, the reaction of its Kerala unit has been muted given the significant minority population in the State.
The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala was quick to criticise the CAA and place itself as the bulwark against the Sangh Parivar’s designs, followed by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), even though both the fronts called the notification a diversion from the electoral bonds issue. While the LDF government reiterated that the CAA and the National Register of Citizens will not be implemented in Kerala, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K. Sudhakaran said that the CAA will be “thrown into the Arabian Sea” if INDIA comes to power.
All of a sudden, every other election issue, whether the LDF’s campaign over the Union government’s alleged financial embargo of Kerala or the UDF’s long list of complaints about the State government, seem to have been pushed to the background with the CAA taking the spotlight. Over the past week, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has addressed anti-CAA rallies in various districts. The UDF has also been organising protest marches, especially in the northern districts, which have a higher concentration of minorities.
The State government has also moved the Supreme Court seeking an injunction against the implementation of the CAA, saying it will lead to hostile discrimination. Mr. Vijayan, who has branded the law a challenge to the very idea of India, has portrayed it as part of the Sangh Parivar’s long-time agenda of turning Muslims into second-class citizens by taking away their basic rights. He has also lashed out at the Congress saying the party had not put up sufficient resistance against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Parliament and outside.
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In December 2019, at the beginning of the anti-CAA movement, Mr. Vijayan and Ramesh Chennithala, who was the Opposition leader, had led a joint protest. The Kerala Assembly had also unanimously passed a resolution against the Bill. But since then, the INDIA bloc partners do not see eye to eye on this issue. The current Opposition leader, V.D. Satheesan, has accused the Chief Minister of misleading the public and has asserted that Congress MPs have strongly protested against the CAA. States have little role in implementing the CAA and only a Congress-led INDIA bloc government can annul it, he added.
Mr. Satheesan also questioned Mr. Vijayan’s own sincerity in opposing CAA, as the government failed to withdraw the cases registered against people, numbering about 800, who were part of anti-CAA protests in 2019. To this charge, Mr. Vijayan responded saying 629 of these cases were quashed by the courts, and the government has already agreed to withdraw 84 others. The only cases that have not been withdrawn are those involving serious offences, he said.
BJP State President K. Surendran believes that the withdrawal of cases against anti-CAA protesters is part of the LDF’s attempts at minority appeasement. The BJP is also planning to approach the Election Commission of India over the alleged violations of the Model Code of Conduct in withdrawing these cases. Mr. Surendran has reiterated the national leadership’s argument that the CAA does not deny citizenship to any particular community.
The debate is expected to have a bearing on the voting patterns of the State’s minority population. For the LDF, the anti-CAA debates have helped push to the sidelines discussions on contentious State-specific issues that could drive anti-incumbency. The debates have also given the LDF, which won just one seat in 2019, yet another opportunity to question the Congress’s genuineness on issues concerning minorities, such as the national leadership’s dithering over the Ayodhya temple consecration, as well the large number of defections of Congress leaders to the BJP. The Congress is still struggling to shed its “soft Hindutva” tag. In 2019, the minorities overwhelmingly voted in favour of the UDF following Rahul Gandhi’s candidature from Wayanad, but it remains to be seen whether such a wave can be recreated this time.
