On Monday, the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) Lok Sabha campaign seemed to struggle for a political lifeline to pull itself out of a swirling vortex of arguably damning election-era controversies.
For one, the ruling front appeared striving to fend off Congress’s aggressive bid to yoke the CPI(M) local leadership to the accidental Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast that killed one bomb-maker and seriously injured two others at Panoor in Kannur district last week.
The Congress seemed keen to shackle the CPI(M)‘s Lok Sabha campaign in the Vadakara constituency to the politically burdensome crime. Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala demanded a CBI or NIA probe into the blast. He accused Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan of giving legal and political cover to party workers involved in the bomb fabrication that went awry.