'Kerala's mainstream parties vying to support Taliban': State BJP president K Surendran

Kerala BJP president K Surendran on Saturday alleged that mainstream political parties in the state are vying to extend support to the Taliban after the terror outfit took complete control of Afghanistan. K Surendran remarked that both, the ruling parties CPI(M)-led LDF and the Congress-headed UDF opposition were playing a different sort of politics after the militants were back in power in the neighbouring country.

K Surendran: 'Ruling govt trying to whitewash Moplah riots'

Alleging that those who take a pro-Taliban stand were the ones trying to whitewash Moplah riots that occurred in the state in 1921, the Kerala BJP president said that in the state, political leaders are nurturing religious extremism by giving milk and honey. Hitting out at the Left government and its police force, he said that they were taking an "irresponsible" stand as extremist forces were gaining strength in the state. 

These statements by Surendran come in the wake of the raging debate in Kerala over whether the Malabar Rebellion alias "Moplah (Muslim) Rebellion" reported in the northern part of the state in the year 1921 was a revolt against the British or a communal riot. Meanwhile, the CPI(M) has described the rebellion as the most organised agitation against the exploitation by feudal landlords, the Congress has called it a shining movement against the anti-imperialist forces.

However, the BJP and the RSS have described the rebellion as one of the first manifestations of the Taliban mindset in India, strongly opposing the move by the Left and Congress to treat it as part of India's freedom struggle.

Earlier, former National General Secretary of BJP Ram Madhav claimed that the Moplah rebellion in Kerala was in a way the first manifestation of Talibani mindset in India and that the state's ruling Left government was allegedly trying to whitewash it by celebrating it as a communist revolution.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the year-long 'Mapilla (Moplah) Riots Martyrs Remembrance program at Kozhikode, Madhav had said, "Taliban isn't just a terror outfit, it's a mindset. Born out of fundamentalists, radicalists and Islamist ideas. Its victims are around the world even in Muslim countries. One of the worst victims of such a mindset has been Indians. This mindset was responsible for the partition of our country in 1947."

Image: ANI