Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala on Monday said that both the Constitution and democracy in the country have been by-passed by Modi.
"This has been done according to the agenda prescribed by the RSS and the Sangh Parivar forces. This is a real threat to India. By dividing Kashmir, both Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have, in fact, divided the country," he said.
"Previous governments at the Centre have always taken into confidence the people of Kashmir whenever they acted on Kashmir. Through this act, the issues in Kashmir will turn for the worse and what happened in 1947, when the country was divided, will surface again. Democracy has been thrown out of the window through this division," Chennithala added.
Senior Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader and LDF convenor, A. Vijayaraghavan, told that "through this move, both democracy and secularism in the country have been brutally massacred by the Sangh Parivar".
"We have organised a protest today across Kerala and on Wednesday an even bigger protest is going to take place against this act of the Modi government. The country is going to pass through tough times, similar to what happened when this same Sangh Parivar forces razed the Babri Masjid. They will have to pay a heavy price for this," he said.
Congress General Secretary and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said this happened without even a discussion.
"Right now this has happened, and nobody should be surprised when tomorrow there will be many similar decisions. The Congress will hold huge protests across the country against this arbitrary act of the BJP," he said.
Defending his party's decision, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Radhakrishnan Menon said they did what they had promised to do.
State Police chief Loknath Behra has given directions to all the 14 district police chiefs to ensure more security is deployed in sensitive areas.
The youth wing of the CPI-M, Democratic Youth Front of India, staged a strong protest before the official residence of the Governor and shouted anti-Modi slogans.
( With inputs from IANS )