Devaswom Ordinance anti-secular: BJP

Kerala BJP president PK Krishnadas has said that the Ordinance amending the Travancore-Cochin Devaswom rules was against secularism.

The State Cabinet on Thursday approved and sent for Governors ascent the Ordinance that seeks to reduce the term of Travancore and Cochin Devaswom boards to two years from five years.

Krishnadas said his party would request Governor RL Bhatia not to give ascent to the Ordinance, which he alleged was against the interests of the devotees.

The Ordinance reflected the hidden agenda of the CPI(M) to take over rules of Hindu places of worship, he said. If the Ordinance was being promulgated with good intentions why it was not discussed in the State Assembly, the BJP leader asked.

He said the Hindus were not getting opportunity to decide the affairs of their temples when other religions had the right to decide matters in their places of worship.

Meanwhile, BJP workers took out marches across the State on Thursday to taluk offices protesting against price rise and religious terrorism.

Inaugurating the march in Cherthala, Alappuzha, State party chief Krishnadas said price rise and religious terrorism were creation of Central and Kerala governments.

He asked the Centre to follow the example set by the former Vajpayee government to control prices. He said Kerala should follow the model set by Gujarat Government under Narendra Modi to defeat religious terrorism.

The march was inaugurated by CK Padmanabhan and Madikkai Kumaran in Kasaragod, V Muraleedharan and Palliyara Raman in Kannur, PM Velayudhan in Wayanad, A N Radhakrishnan and PP Karunakaran in Kozhikode, PC Mohanan and T Chandrasekharan in Malappuram, K Janachandran, PJ Thomas and N Sivarajan in Palakkad and others. KP Sabu inaugurated the march in Idukki, B Radhakrishna Menon and Ravi Veliyathunad in Alappuzha, KP Sreesan and KG Rajmohan in Kottayam and K Surendran, AG Unnikrishnan and K Sivadas in Pathanamthitta.

Marches in Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram will be held on Friday, a BJP release said.