More Opponents for Church’s Poster Boy- Tom Vadakkan

More opponents for Tom Vadakkan in Thrissur

PNS | Thrissur

Opposition
to the proposed candidature for Lok Sabha of AICC general secretary Tom
Vaddkan in Thrisuur intensified on Sunday with even people outside the
Congress party joining the tirade against Vadakkan in the name of his
outlandish mannerisms and poor grip on Malayalam language.

Social
critic, writer and well-known orator Sukumar Azheecode came out in
Sunday with strong criticisms against Vadakkan for his proposed
candidature within 24 hours of former minister and senior Congress
leader KP Viswanathan’s attack against him. Azheecode, known as a
Left-leaning writer-critic said Vadakkan should not be allowed to
contest in Thrissur for the way he spoke the Malayalam language was
horrible.

“Thrissur is the cultural capital of Kerala, and a
person with no knowledge of Malayalam language should not be allowed to
contest he election from here. “The man does not know Malayalam. You
will feel like giving him a slap if you hear him speaking in
Malayalam,” Acheecode said.

“There is one other thing. Let him
make three or four speeches. That would ensure that he would not get
his deposit back. Such are his language and style of talk,” the
writer-critic said. Azheecode also said that it was highly improper of
the Catholic Church to insist that Vadakkan himself should contest as
Congress candidate.

“The people should not allow Vadakkan to
contest here irrespective of from whom the inisistence comes – be it
the Church of anybody else. And, the Church insisting for the
candidature of someone is violation of the Constitution,” he pointed
out.

As usual, Vadakkan responded to the criticism from
Azheecode in his feeble Malayalam but with obvious traces of
resentment. He said in Delhi that he had the right answer for such
criticisms but he was not offering them as his party had asked him to
be silent towards critics till April 16, the day of polling in Kerala.

“My
candidature is to be decided by my party, and my victory or defeat is
to be decided by the people,” Vadakkan said, suddenly turning ambiguous
with the words, “I am asking the people about the justice behind this.
Is this just?”

Vadakkan asked his critics whether he had at
any point of time said he would be contesting in Thrissur, but
observers said he had several times said so. In the face of criticism
from Thrissur district Congress president CN Balakrishnan, Vadakkan had
given clear indication that he was determined to contest the Thrissur
seat.

Responding to the criticism from Azheecode, Vadakkan said
he would answer all critics after April 16. “I will come to offer my
version. Where do they want it – Thrissur, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi or
London – and in what language – Hindi, English or Malayalam?

“I
am not answering them now not because I don’t have an answer. I have
the answer with me. But I have to obey my party and that is why I am
keeping silent,” he said.

On Saturday, KP Viswanathan had
unleashed an attack against Vadakkan for his plan to contest the
Thrissur seat with the blessings of Thrissur Catholic Church Archbishop
Mar Andrews Thazhath. Viswanathan said Vadakkan’s candidature would do
more harm than good to the party at this juncture.

Objections to
the move to make Vadakkan the Congress candidate in Thrissur had first
come from none other than CN Balakrishnan, president of the district
Congress committee, who referring indirectly to Vadakkan, said that
“overused brooms” should not be made candidates.

Vadakkan was
criticized in the worst possible language for his plan to contest in
Thrisssur by a Congress worker in the presence of president Sonia
Gandhi at a party conference in Delhi last month. Party’s Udumbanchola
block president Senapathy Venu, who got a chance to speak at the
conference, lashed out at Tom Vadakkan with a request to the high
command not to make “sweepers and tea boys of AICC office” candidates
in Kerala.

In the context of widespread dissent towards the
candidature of tom Vadakkan, the Thrissur Archdiocesan office of the
Roman Catholic Church started efforts to remove the obstacles. Vadakkan
is known as the choice of Archbishop Thazhath for Thrissur where
Catholics constitute 37 percent of the electorate. According to
sources, the Archbishop himself has started exercises to win the
Congress ticket for Vadakkan by influencing leaders from Christian
community like AK Antony.

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