Kochi: Acclaimed writer Arundhati Roy said she couldn't sleep the night the Karnataka Assembly Election results were declared.
"I was so happy because I felt like Kerala cannot be the only place standing," said Roy at the 'yuvadhara' youth literature festival in Fort Kochi on Sunday.
Congress had wrested power back from the BJP in Karnataka by securing 135 of the 224 seats in the state assembly. Karnataka had been the only southern state with a BJP government.
Roy, who is a Malayali said Kerala must continue to keep the BJP at bay. "It's like a lit match asking the firewood, 'Give us a chance'. Kerala will burn down if you give them a chance," Roy said.
The author of the Booker Prize-winning novel 'The God of Small Things' said how disappointed she was with the church leaders for meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent Kerala visit.
"I was very upset to see people showering flowers. Worst of all, sections of the Christian church were going and meeting him. How is this even possible unless you don't know what's going on? Do you know what's going on in Manipur? Do you know what's going on in Chhattisgarh? Do you know what's happening in Jharkhand with Christians? Do you know that in the last two years, there have been 300 attacks on Christian churches? How can you even have a conversation with these people?" Roy said.
'We need elephants and elephant eggs'
Roy said her favourite text message was one sent by her sister-in-law right after the Kerala Assembly Elections in 2021. "The message was BJP is equal to 'aana motta' (elephant egg)," said Roy, the inference being the saffron party failing to secure even a single seat. In the previous assembly elections in 2016, the BJP had won its first-ever seat at Nemom in Thiruvananthapuram, where veteran leader O Rajagopal had created history.
"We need aana (elephant) and aana motta (elephant egg), but we don't need the BJP."
