The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretariat has perceived a well-entrenched plot involving Central agencies, right-wing political forces and the corporate media to cast the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government under a shadow of suspicion ahead of the Puthupally byelection scheduled on September 5.
It also sensed the allegedly calumny-charged campaign surreptitiously aimed to blot out the government’s welfare and development measures by slander-mongering and morally void muckraking.
The CPI(M) portrayed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid on the residence of party legislator and former Minister A.C. Moideen as tangible evidence of the symbiotic mafia-style nexus.
The CPI(M) said the corporate media and Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) played second fiddle to the BJP’s brazen attempt to silence dissent in the country. It had, earlier, repeatedly accused the Congress of degenerating into an obsequious ideological echo chamber of the BJP.
New low
The CPI(M) said the Centre had subverted Central agencies to target political opponents. The CPI(M) said the media had stooped to new lows by amplifying false insinuations aired by Congress and BJP leaders and launching highly personalised and derogatory witch-hunts against party leaders and their kin.
The CPI(M) said it would muster public opinion and mobilise the public against the patently anti-people axis.
The CPI(M) secretariat also strongly defended Mr. Moideen’s public credentials as an ethical and principled politician.
The CPI(M) had firmly pushed back against the Congress and BJP’s “personalised attacks” against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his family.
It had also defended Speaker A.N. Shamseer, who was targeted politically for pointing out the inherent difference between science and myth. CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan rejected the demands of the Congress, the BJP and the influential Nair Service Society for a public apology from the Speaker.
The CPI(M) appeared confident it could weather the latest recrimination-charged campaign against the government. For one, it had braved a harsh vilification campaign to storm back to power for a second term in the 2021 Legislative Assembly elections.
Mr. Vijayan echoed the CPI(M)‘s apparent confidence at a public function in Thiruvananthapuram. He said the people would see through the smoke screen of derogatory lies laid down by vested interests to besmirch the government if the 2021 Assembly election held any lesson. Nevertheless, the Congress and the BJP appeared undeterred and continued reiterating the accusations they have repeatedly raised against the government.
