The ongoing agitation against the proposed National Highway (NH) bypass at Keezhattur near Taliparamba here by local residents and farmers is all set to be a ground for the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to escalate their rivalry.
Local activists agitating against the bypass project under the aegis of ‘Vayalkilikal,’ a group of residents, including CPI(M) workers and sympathisers, of Keezhattur, have refused to give in despite the CPI(M) leadership’s firm stand that agitation is anti-development. The party has already expelled nine of its workers of Keezhattur, a CPI(M) stronghold, for participating in the agitation in defiance of the party’s stand. The Bharatiya Jana Yuva Morcha has been supporting the stir.
“The BJP is supporting the agitation by the ‘Vayalkilikal’ against the bypass alignment,” BJP district pesident P. Sathyaprakash said. The party’s State president Kummanam Rajasekharan had visited the agitators at the initial stage of the agitation, he said.
CPI(M) district secretary P. Jayarajan had alleged on Monday that the Sangh Parivar was trying to exploit the agitation. He had alleged that the four people arrested in connection with an incident of attack on SFI workers at Trichambaram near Taliparamba had plans to murder two Vayalkilikal activists to leave the CPI(M) under the cloud of suspicion. He had also said that 56 of the 60 residents of Keezhattur whose land was identified for acquisition for the bypass project had given consent letters.
The BJP leadership here said that the ‘twin murder plot’ theory was scripted by some officers at the Taliparamba police station to help the CPI(M) embarrassed by the Keezhattur agitation. None of the four people arrested in connection with the attack on the SFI leader had any links with the BJP, a press release by the party said.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) local leaders denied the allegation made by Vayalkilikal activists that the alleged handing over of consent letters by the land owners was a fiction. Party Taliparamba area secretary P. Mukundan and local secretary Pullayikkodi Chandran alleged that Vayalkilikal was spreading falsehood and trying to create riot. They said 56 residents had already handed over consent letters to James Mathew, MLA.
