The violence in Manipur and the Centre’s purported move to draft a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), it appears, are threatening to throw the BJP’s carefully choreographed outreach to minorities off balance in Kerala.
On Thursday, Mar Joseph Pamplany, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Thalassery Archdiocese of the influential Syro-Malabar Church, lent his voice to the anti-BJP chorus in the wake of the Manipur violence.
The BJP had counted Mar Pamplany among its backers in the Church after the archbishop said Christians would vote for the BJP if the Centre ensured a higher market price for rubber. Christian settler farmers hold immense political and social clout in Central and North Kerala and view the Church as their champion.
