UDF Govt's PM Shri Announcement Part of Congress-BJP Deal: CPI(M)

Thiruvananthapuram: The CPI(M) has declared that Chief Minister V D Satheesan's announcement to implement the PM SHRI scheme is part of a Congress-BJP deal, warning that secular society will not allow the National Education Policy — which the party described as a Sangh Parivar agenda — to be imposed on Keralam the way it has been in Congress-governed states.

In a statement issued by the State Secretariat, the party recalled that V D Satheesan, K C Venugopal, and P K Kunhalikutty had all publicly pledged before the election that they would not implement PM SHRI if voted to power. The very League ministers who said they would throw PM SHRI into the Arabian Sea are now leading its implementation, the statement said, adding that the UDF owed the people of Keralam an apology for this brazen reversal. The party also charged that the UDF had earlier spread fabricated propaganda about PM SHRI to inflame sentiment against the LDF among religious minorities.

The CPI(M) said the National Education Policy, in force since 2022, is fundamentally about saffronising textbooks and curricula. Keralam, by contrast, has maintained secular syllabuses — continuing to teach the Mughal period and retaining the historical fact that Nathuram Vinayak Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi, content that has already been removed from CBSE textbooks. Congress-governed states have already allowed their textbooks to be saffronised, and the party asked whether Keralam's UDF government intends to follow the same path — warning that if so, powerful agitations will follow.

The statement catalogued what it described as a series of Congress-BJP understandings stretching back to Chief Minister V D Satheesan's visit to Mangaluru, and his lighting of a lamp before a portrait of RSS founding ideologue Golwalkar, while he was an MLA. Since coming to power, V D Satheesan has appointed an IAS officer who led the removal of voters from electoral rolls as Chief Minister's Secretary, appointed a Sangh Parivar-friendly press secretary, stayed silent on the RSS-linked MG University Vice Chancellor and 19 RSS members inducted into its Senate, and failed to demand an apology from the Governor — who made those appointments — when three VCs attended an RSS event.

The party further charged that the CM's silence in the face of the Centre withholding ₹14,000 crore due to Keralam since the UDF assumed office reflects servility toward the Centre, and that the Higher Education Minister has explicitly ruled out any confrontation with the Governor. The CPI(M) warned that Keralam's secular society would unite to protect secularism — including in education — and that the Chief Minister should not dream of replicating in Keralam the model of Rahul Gandhi embracing Narendra Modi.