The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Thursday perceived a plot to provoke Congress workers into violence against CPI(M) cadres by using the heft of the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's Office (CMO) to employ the police and criminals to target Opposition offices and activists.
KPCC president K. Sudhakaran and Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said the CMO was desperate to create a CPI(M) martyr to extricate the government from its current predicament.
The government was reeling from days of street protests demanding Mr. Vijayan’s resignation in the wake of the “damning disclosures” by the diplomat channel gold smugglng case accused Swapna Suresh.
Power centre
Mr. Satheesan alleged the CMO was a den of illicit activity. “Power has shifted from the AKG Centre to the CMO. The CMO controls the CPI(M) and the police at the micro-level. It ordered the attack on the Opposition Leader’s house. The CMO directed CPI(M) cadres against Congress workers and offices. It persuaded the police to slap serious charges on two Congress workers who had protested peacefully after the Chief Minister exited an aircraft,” he said.
The BJP was in cahoots with the CPI(M). Central agencies had scuttled the smuggling case probe as a quid pro quo for dismantling the Kodakara hawala heist case against the BJP’s State leadership. The Congress wanted a High Court-monitored “further investigation” into the charges raised by Swapna against Mr. Vijayan.
Mr. Sudhakaran said the KPCC leadership had not sanctioned the inflight protest against Mr. Vijayan. “The Congress workers had raised slogans on their own. They had done so in good faith. The action testified to their political commitment,” he said.
