The unprecedented move of Kerala Governor joining a fast against dowry has triggered a political row with the opposition parties holding the Left-front government in the state responsible for such a move on the part of the Governor.
However, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, who joined the day-long fasting by various Gandhian organisations in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday, said that he joined the stir to create awareness about a social evil and he had even discussed it with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. This is an issue above politics, he said during his concluding remarks.
The Governor also mooted a provision for cancelling educational certificates of those implicated in dowry-related cases as well as to insist on a bond from students while awarding the certificates that they would neither give nor take dowry. He also urged public representatives to keep off from marriages in which dowry was involved.
A series of recent dowry deaths in the state had prompted the Gandhian outfits to stage the fasting at the Gandhi Bhavan. The Governor joined the fasting from Raj Bhavan and attend a prayer meeting at Gandhi Bhavan by evening.
Congress president in Kerala K Sudhakaran said that Kerala was witnessing an unprecedented scenario with the Governor, who is the head of the government, himself joining a stir. The government was responsible for forcing the Governor to take such unprecedented steps, he said. BJP state president K Surendran said that the increasing crime against women in the state had forced the Governor to stage the stir.