Kerala Assembly Speaker MP Rajesh stirred a political controversy when he compared Malabar Rebellion leaders with celebrated freedom fighter Shaheed Bhagat Singh.

While speaking at an event organised by the Kerala library on the completion of 100 years of Malabar Rebellion or Moplah Revolution in Malappuram, MB Rajesh said, “I think his (Variamkunnath Kunhamed Haji) place is at par with Bhagat Singh.”

Variamkunnath Kunhamed Haji was one of the leaders of the Moplah revolution which took place in 1921 in Kerala’s Malabar.

His comments did not go down well with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which believes that the Moplah revolution was an uprising against the prevailing feudal system controlled by elite Hindus.

BJP’s general secretary in Kerala C Krishnakumar demanded the Kerala Speaker be booked under the sedition law.

He said, “Rajesh has insulted the freedom struggle by comparing Bhagat Singh to the aggressor Variyamkunnan who massacred the Hindus in Malabar.”

“CPM secretary A Vijayaraghavan should clarify whether the CPM accepts the Speaker’s statement to make a rebel a freedom fighter to please the Muslim fundamentalists,” he added.

The BJP leader went on to add that the Malabar riots were the first organised “terrorist attack” in Kerala. “In 1921, Variyamkunnan and his gang committed atrocities similar to those carried out by the Taliban,” he opined.

Meanwhile, Anoop Kaippali of the BJP said that he will file a case against MB Rajesh along with Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga.

The controversy broke out after the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) recommended the deletion of Moplah leaders from the Dictionary of Martyrs of India’s Freedom Struggle.

Following research, the council concluded that the 1921 rebellion was never a part of the independence struggle but a fundamentalist movement focused on religious conversion.

In its report, it said, “None of the slogans raised by the rioters were in favour of nationalism or anti-British in content.”