Palakkad Municipality passed a resolution to name a new Skill Development Center after RSS founder Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, sparking a heated scuffle between BJP and opposition councillors that disrupted the council meeting.
Tensions erupted just as the meeting was about to begin, with members of the Congress-led UDF and CPI(M)-led LDF staging a protest inside the council hall. Holding placards and raising slogans, opposition councillors condemned the move, calling it politically motivated and unacceptable.
The situation quickly escalated into a physical altercation. Microphones were damaged during the fracas, and the municipal chairperson had to be escorted out by BJP members and taken to her office for safety. Opposition members continued their protest outside the chairperson’s room, waving black flags in symbolic dissent. However, outside the municipality premises, CPI(M) workers held a separate demonstration in solidarity with the opposition councillors.
Despite the commotion, the chairperson affirmed that the resolution had already been approved by the council’s BJP majority. BJP state general secretary C. Krishna Kumar criticised the opposition, accusing them of double standards. He said that while Congress and CPI(M) had no objection to institutions being named after figures like Mohammad Ali Jinnah, they were now opposing one named after Hedgewar.
This is not the first instance of such controversy. BJP leaders have previously cited examples of institutions in Malappuram named after Variam Kunnath Muhammad Haji, a key figure in the 1921 Malabar Rebellion, a movement marked by communal violence against Hindus under Haji’s leadership.
Municipal councillor and former BJP National Council member N. Sivarajan asserted that the municipality would go ahead with the naming “at any cost.”
Allegations have emerged in past debates that opposition parties oppose such moves to cater to Muslim voters in the upcoming local body elections, probably to be conducted in October. However, with BJP holding a majority in the municipality, the resolution was carried through despite the uproar.
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