BJP leader and Maharashtra Minister Nitesh Rane’s ‘mini Pakistan’ remark draws flak in Kerala

Maharashtra Minister Nitesh Rane criticized Kerala as "mini Pakistan", sparking backlash from political leaders for communal remarks.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Maharashtra’s Fisheries and Ports Minister Nitesh Rane has drawn flak from Kerala’s ruling front and the Opposition for purportedly referring to the State as a “mini Pakistan”. 

In a tersely worded statement, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan denounced Mr. Rane’s supposed words as “extremely galling and inflammatory.”

Mr. Vijayan said Mr. Rane’s words reflected the Sangh Parivar’s strategy of dividing people into communal lines in regions with scarce political influence.

He said Sangh Parivar othered and demonised people and regions where its divisive political ideology had no traction. Mr. Vijayan pointed out that Mr. Rane’s statement contradicted India’s secular Constitution, and that the latter had lost the moral right to continue in office. 

Communist Party of India (CPI) State secretary Binoy Viswam told The Hindu that the Maharashtra government should oust Mr. Rane from the Cabinet for “spewing communal venom”. 

He echoed Mr. Vijayan’s sentiment that Mr. Rane’s words ran against the Constitution’s secular and federal core.

Earlier in a statement, Mr. Viswam said Mr. Rane’s words reflected Sangh Parivar’s “ideological pauperism and the “chathur varna” system of stratifying society based on casteist hierarchy. The BJP’s ideology stemmed from the” much-reviled” and rejected Manusmriti, the fountainhead of the oppressive caste system, he said.