Mr Chandy’s meeting the other day with the Thamarassery Bishop, Remigiose Inchananiyil, who is the KCBC chairman, failed to placate the aggrieved Bishop. The Bishop is learnt to have told the CM to reinstate the original liquor policy which mandated closure of 700 odd bars in the state. The CM's efforts to convince the Bishop of the circumstances which forced him to make changes in the policy has obviously failed.

The Chief Minister has put up a brave front by claiming that the meeting was fruitful and satisfactory. But the reality is that the meeting was anything but fruitful. The only fruitful thing about it was that the Bishop did not refuse to receive the Chief Minister!

A visible tell-tale sign tells a story entirely different from the spin the CM’s camp has put on the meeting. First and foremost, the KCBC has refused to end the ‘Nilpu Samaram’ (‘Standing’ agitation) being held in protest against the changes the UDF Government has made in its liquor policy. That the KCBC continues to be resentful of the U-turn in the government’s liquor policy is clear from the statement issued by Father Abraham Kavilpurayidathil, spokesperson of the Thamarassery Diocese. He said that the KCBC would go on with their protest.

In the ongoing protest, members of the KCBC, including women, gag their mouths with black cloth and hold placards accusing the Chandy Government of diluting the liquor policy to please the liquor mafia. The protestors said the ‘practical’ changes in the policy would create a new generation of underage drinkers in the state. They also want the government to refrain from granting licences to beer and wine parlous.

The sharp deterioration in the relations between the KCBC and the Government was accentuated by the utterly thoughtless, ill-advised and graceless remarks made by two of the Chief Minister’s trusted aides, Excise Minister K. Babu and Minister for Rural Development and Planning K C Joseph.

Joseph had gone to the extent of asking the KCBC to look itself in the mirror before criticizing the Government! Christians, Joseph said, account for majority of those selling and consuming liquor and the KCBC should do something to stop this.

It was this remark which angered the KCBC Madhya Viruddha Samithi(Anti-Liquor Samithi), which is spearheading the ‘Nilpu Samaram’. Both the CM and his lieutenants had hoped – it was a crude attempt to drive a wedge between the KCBC and its anti-liquor committee - the CM's meeting with the KCBC chairman would have a sobering effect on the struggle leaders, and they would tone down the hostility to the Chandy Government if not call off the agitation itself. But nothing of the sort has happened.

If anything, the crude tactics of the CM’s camp would seem to have steeled the KCBC’s resolve to go ahead with the anti-liquor policy agitation with renewed vigour.

It is not a surprise that the Chandy Government is extremely worried about the adverse impact of the KCBC’s protest movement. The Catholics are a force to reckon with in Central Kerala districts like Thrissur, Ernakulam, Kottayam and Idukki. Any loss of support of the Catholics in these districts would inflict a crippling blow to the UDF’s attempts to stay in power after the 2016 assembly elections.

It may be mentioned that the Congress had lost the Idukki, Thrissur, Chalakkudy and Kannur seats in the Lok Sabha elections, considered safe seats for the party. That defeat was attributed to the Church’s displeasure with the UDF Government's non-implementation of the Kasturi Rangan report on preservation of the Western Ghats. A repeat of the Lok Sabha debacle in the upcoming local bodies elections and the assembly elections in 2016 on the liquor policy somersault is a luxury neither the Congress nor the party-led United Democratic Front (UDF) can afford. (IPA Service)