E Sreedharan, popularly also known as the ‘Metro Man of India’ is one of the most formidable engineers of the country. The 80-year-old is slated to join electoral politics on Sunday and contest the upcoming Kerala assembly polls on a BJP ticket. By his own admission, E Sreedharan aims at installing the BJP in power in the southern state. A day prior to his induction into the saffron party, the veteran engineer has said that the menace of love jihad is real and that he personally cannot ignore the same.
Coming from a man of science, who has had a distinguished career of spearheading the Delhi metro and Konkan Railway projects, such assertions have put left-liberals in an uncomfortable spot. Speaking to NDTV, Sreedharan said, “Love jihad, yes, I see what’s happened in Kerala. How Hindus are being tricked in a marriage and how they suffer…not only Hindus, Muslims, the Christian girls are being tricked in a marriage. Now that sort of a thing I certainly will oppose.”
On the issue of beef consumption in Kerala, much to the dismay of liberals, Sreedharan said, “Personally, I am a very very strict vegetarian. I don’t even eat eggs so, certainly I don’t like anybody eating meat. That is certain…”. For the longest time, the left-liberal cabal has been hounding those who dare to speak out against the menace of love jihad, by tagging them as communal bigots who cannot stand the sight of relationships between Hindu women and Islamist men.
Particularly after states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh brought-in laws to criminalise love jihad and forced conversions, with several other BJP-ruled states following suit, liberals have been up in arms against the saffron party and its supporters for ‘interfering’ in the personal choices of ‘couples’. However, E Sreedharan’s remarks prove that there is absolutely nothing ‘personal’ or ‘consensual’ in such relationships and that Hindu women are almost always made victims of such relations.
Read more: Law against Love Jihad is totally constitutional, and it cannot be stopped by opposition leaders
For quite some time now, the left-liberal ecosystem has been trying to portray love jihad as a figment of the imagination of ‘Hindu fringe and fanatics.’ E Sreedharan is not a fanatic by any stretch of the mind. Yet, his remarks against the menace of love jihad are being discounted by a section of the media.
The metro man has made it clear that his aim is to bring the BJP to power in Kerala. Calling the current Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan a ‘dictator’, Sreedharan said, “The chief minister cannot be given even three out of 10 marks. No minister is free to do anything. Ministers often have to change what they say.”
Sreedharan said he was interested in contesting the polls in the constituencies of Palakkad and Malappuram districts and wanted to be a part of the government. The engineer also made it clear that he was open to becoming the Chief Minister of Kerala.