Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah is trying to win brownie points with voters in Kannur—the epicentre of political violence in Kerala and a Left bastion—by becoming the first passenger to land at Kannur airport, even before it gets commissioned in early December. Shah will land in Kannur in a special aircraft on Saturday to inaugurate the newly constructed district office of the BJP. The commissioning of the airport has been tentatively scheduled on December 9.
The ministry of civil aviation has already asked the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to grant permission for landing the aircraft carrying Shah. The Kannur International Airport Limited, it is learnt, had earlier decided not to give approval for Shah’s aircraft to land in Kannur, as the official inauguration was yet to happen. But, finally, they had to give in to the order from the civil aviation ministry. K.P. Jose, executive director, KIAL, denied there was pressure. “It was not a unilateral decision that was taken by the civil aviation ministry. They had informed us about it. It was not forced on us. This is a licensed airport. The Navy had used it during floods in the state,” said Jose to THE WEEK.
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The state government, it seems, is not happy. Said K.K. Shailaja, Kerala’s health minister, to THE WEEK, “To use an airport before it is launched is not at all right. Ideally, Amit Shah and his team should have informed the state government about the intention to use the Kannur airport. We were purposely kept out of the loop. The Union government has the habit of deciding everything on its own.”
Union Minister Sadananda Gowda said the CPI(M) government in Kerala is trying to play politics over a trivial matter. “Our party president’s visit to Kannur airport will be beneficial for the state. Once the AAI takes a decision, it is final. There is no need to seek permission from the state government or officials of the airport concerned,” said Gowda to THE WEEK.
There is no clarity yet on whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the fourth international airport of Kerala in December. If he does not come, Union Minister for Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu will be the chief guest. “The chief minister (Pinarayi Vijayan), when he was in Delhi, had met the prime minister and requested him to be the chief guest at the inauguration. But we are not sure whether he will come,” said Shailaja.
Kannur district is considered the stronghold of the communist movement in the state since the 1930s. The 'Kannur lobby' of the CPI(M) consists of strong and influential leaders, including Vijayan.
Shah has time and again highlighted the political killings in Kannur at the national level. “Successive CPI(M)-led governments have perpetrated a regime of cruel violence in the state and used violence as a medium of politics to stop the march of the ideology of cultural nationalism,” he had said while inaugurating a photo-exhibition on Kerala’s political killings in Delhi in 2015.
"The visit of our party president and him being the first person to land in Kannur airport has a huge political significance in Kannur," said P. Satyaprakash, BJP’s district president, to THE WEEK.
Satyaprakash said the newly-built high-tech party office in Thalikkavu is a four-storey building which will have a library in memory of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “It will have an election war room, a 250-seat auditorium and a conference hall with video conferencing facilities. Such high-tech BJP offices will soon be set up in all other districts of Kerala,” said Satyaprakash.