About six years ago, the Akshayasree Mission had only 24 outlets. However, post the anti-CAA protests, 10 more supermarkets have been opened.
During the January anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in Kerala, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attempted to hold public meetings to explain the new law. This found shopkeepers of several districts in the state pulled down their shutters, forcing the saffron party to reschedule meetings owing to the absence of a crowd.
Taking into account this tactic, applied particularly in the Muslim-dominated northern districts of Kerala, the Sangh Parivar has now started scaling up its supermarkets under the Akshayasree Mission, a network of self-help groups established by Sangh's co-operative movement, The Indian Express reported.
"There were already a few stores under the Akshayasree Mission; the new ones have been opened as a response to the boycott of the BJP’s pro-CAA campaign. These outlets have been launched spontaneously by workers wherever they were boycotted," said R V Babu, state general secretary of the Hindu Aikya Vedi, a Sangh Parivar outfit in the state.
According to the report, about six years ago, the Akshayasree Mission had only 24 outlets. However, post the anti-CAA protests, 10 more supermarkets have been opened while registration for another 40 stores has been completed.
"Because of their boycott, in certain towns, we had to plan the meeting over more than one day. The fringe elements that forced the shops to shut didn’t want people to hear the BJP. There were campaigns, instigating people not to buy from shops owned by Hindus. The new supermarkets are meant to counter these boycotts," a source in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) told the newspaper.
"We ventured into establishing Akshayasree shops six years ago to promote swadeshi products. But the boycott of the CAA campaign has given us a fresh momentum. Had it not been for Covid, we would have launched 100 supermarkets by the end of the year," P K Madhusudhanan, chairman of the Grameen Samrudhi Society under the Akshayasree Mission said.