The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] does not perceive the proposed Uniform Civil Code (UCC) as one affecting Muslims alone, party Kozhikode district secretary P. Mohanan has claimed.
Addressing the media here on Tuesday, he said if that was the case, the party would not have invited leaders of Christian congregations, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes to the national seminar being organised in Kozhikode on July 15.
Mr. Mohanan said that Mar Remigios Inchananiyil, Bishop of the Thamarassery Diocese of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Rev. T.I. James of the Church of South India, Punnala Sreekumar of the Kerala Pulayar Mahasabha, O.R. Kelu of the Adivasi Kshema Samithi, and P. Ramabhadran of the Kerala Dalit Federation would attend the event to be held at the Calicut Trade Centre in Kozhikode city. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury would open the seminar on Saturday evening.
Organisations such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, Popular Front of India, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak, which espouse a theocratic State, had not been invited. Asked why Congress leaders had not found a place in the invitees’ list, Mr. Mohanan said that the party did not have a uniform view on the issue at the national level. “Vikramaditya Singh, Congress leader, and son of the former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Virbhadra Singh, has supported the UCC. Mr. Vikramaditya Singh is a Minister in the Himachal Pradesh government too. Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress president, has not so far spoken against it as well,” the CPI(M) leader said. Though the Indian Union Muslim League had a clear position on the UCC, being the second biggest constituent of the Congress-led United Democratic Front, that party was bound by coalition compulsions. That was why it was not attending the seminar even after being invited to it.
Mr. Mohanan said that the UCC was an attempt by the BJP-led Union government to polarise the country ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. He said that the CPI(M) was planning to hold seminars in all districts in the State and people with secular credentials would have to join hands to resist the Centre’s move.
