Pinarayi Vijayan Slams Centre's Demographic Changes Committee as Communal Polarisation Tool

Thiruvananthapuram: Opposition Leader Pinarayi Vijayan has condemned the High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes constituted by the Union Home Ministry as a politically motivated move designed to sabotage the official census process and engineer communal polarisation across the country. A meeting chaired by the Union Home Minister on June 13 reviewed the committee's functioning.

Pinarayi said the terms of reference of this committee are drawn directly from the political speeches of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and other Sangh Parivar leaders, and that the panel must be seen as a continuation of the Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) and the National Register of Citizens and National Population Register exercises. The Central government, he charged, has deliberately delayed the constitutionally mandated census for political reasons and is now fuelling Sangh Parivar's politics of hatred by deploying this committee in its place.

Rather than awaiting official census data, the committee is being directed at border districts and metro cities to study religion-based demographic shifts — a move Pinarayi said is transparently aimed at spreading fear and division among the people. He drew a parallel with the Centre's earlier attempt to conduct citizenship verification under the cover of electoral roll scrutiny, describing the demographic committee as operating on the same template. The move has caused serious anxiety among minority communities and others targeted by its focus areas. Conflicts in border regions have already become routine following elections in Bengal and Assam, he noted.

Pinarayi further criticised the committee being imposed in violation of federal principles, without any consultation with state governments. He called on all secular parties to come forward and resist this RSS agenda of spreading communal hatred for electoral gain. He also reminded that the LDF government had already ensured the National Population Register would not be implemented in Kerala as part of the census process, and demanded that the UDF government maintain the same vigilance in the context of the demographic changes committee as well.