Kerala govt open to dissent, says Vijayan

KErala chief government minister Pinarayi Vijayan on dominicus released the first edition of Rajahams, the every quarter publishing of the state Raj Bhavan, and underlined that his administration need not share all the views expressed in the magazine.Vijayan visited the Raj Bhavan for the event, along with governor Rajendra Arlekar and Congress member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor, who received the inaugural copy, amid the standoff with the governor’s office over several issues including the usage of the portrait of “Bharat Mata” at official events and differences over administration of universities.The portrait of “Bharat Mata”, typically associated with the RSS and its affiliated organizations, was however absent from the dais at this event.In his speech, the chief minister stressed that articles of contrasting opinion and views, that may appear in the quarterly magazine, do not upset the state government, pointing to Kerala’s record of upholding the values of having discourses and debates.Pointing to an article titled “Article 200 and a Constitutional conundrum” written by Adv Sreekumar, the legal advisor to the governor, the chief minister said that the views expressed in it belong to the author and are not necessarily shared by the state. The article referred to the recent Supreme Court judgment on Tamil Nadu’s governor RN Ravi and his actions with respect to bills passed by the state legislature.“Just because they are views presented in the official quarterly of the Raj Bhavan should not lend the impression that the State shares the same views too. Should dissent be accommodated or strangled? That’s the question. Kerala has a government that believes in accommodating dissent. We have a public sphere, thanks to reformist and renaissance movements, that welcomes dissent,” he said.“In his message, that appears in the introductory section of this journal, the governor has complimented our state for the co-existential attitude of the people here, and the co-existence of the diametrically opposite ideologies at various levels.” It only shows that we have a public sphere that accommodates conflicting views, Vijayan added.Governor Arlekar, in his address, pitched for Raj Bhavans to become more accessible to the people and stressed that things have changed for the better in the last few years.He also stated that he had pitched a suggestion in 2022 for Raj Bhavans to be renamed as “Lok Bhavan”, with greater interactions with the general public. “The hangover of the colonial regime has to be done away with. The British may have thought differently about governors. We are here for the people. It should be called Lok Bhavan,” he said.(With PTI inputs)