Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said the state government would write to the President and the Prime Minister against governor Arif Mohammed Khan, whom he accused of vitiating the atmosphere in the state by making provocative statements.

“The state government will have to accuse him of trying to destroy the peaceful atmosphere in the state,” Vijayan told a news conference in Kollam.

His comments came amid a standoff between the governor and the CPM student arm SFI, which is agitating against the “saffronisation of campuses”, as well as a controversy over a remark by Khan about Vijayan’s home district of Kannur.

Khan has repeatedly described SFI cadres as “goondas” and “criminals”. When a reporter asked him on Monday why he was making provocative statements, a livid Khan retorted: “Get lost, get lost.”

He then walked off to address a seminar titled “Sree Narayana Guru, Prophet of Renaissance”, organised jointly by the Sanatana Dharma Chair and the Bharatiya Vichara Kendram at Calicut University.

The university, where Khan has been staying since Saturday evening, has been turned into a fortress keeping in mind the SFI protest.

While the governor spoke at the gathering about the principles of Sanatana Dharma and the teachings of Guru, one of the foremost social reformers in Kerala history, police struggled to contain hundreds of slogan-shouting SFI cadres outside the university gates.

Vice-chancellor M.K. Jayaraj, who was scheduled to chair the event, was said to have boycotted the seminar in protest at the governor’s recent behaviour.

The tussle began last week when SFI activists tried to attack the governor’s car, protesting against his nomination of four under-qualified ABVP cadres to the Kerala University senate. Seven SFI workers were arrested under stringent sections and remanded in judicial custody.

Following this, the SFI resolved not to let Khan set foot on any campus. But Khan dared the outfit by shifting his place of stay, during a three-day visit to Kozhikode for two private events, from the government guesthouse to the university campus.

Protesting SFI activists welcomed him at Calicut University on Saturday with black banners that screamed: “Sanghi chancellor, wapas jao.”

Angered by the banners, Khan openly berated senior police officers and got them to remove these on Sunday.

This led to the SFI putting up more such banners and posters, backed up with graffiti, at Calicut University and other campuses in the state on Monday. SFI workers
also torched effigies of the governor.