Senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader C.V. Varghese’s alleged remarks that Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K. Sudhakaran was “living on CPI(M)‘s favour” triggered a political row on Wednesday as prominent Congress leaders rallied behind their party chief demanding legal action against the former.
The controversy erupted after a video surfaced in the public domain in which the Idukki district secretary purportedly says that “Sudhakaran’s life is CPI(M)‘s favour” as his party did not want to kill a “wretched creature”.
The speech was reportedly made during a recent protest meet organised by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at Cheruthoni against the alleged “murderous politics” of the Congress, which had convened an explanatory session in the wake of the killing of Students’ Federation of India activist Dheeraj at the Government Engineering College here.
During the meeting, Mr. Sudhakaran had defended the Youth Congress activists who had been arrested in connection with Dheeraj’s murder.
As Mr. Varghese’s controversial speech surfaced, senior Congress leaders, including AICC member K.C. Venugopal, Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan and Ramesh Chennithala, came out in support of Mr. Sudhakaran.
While Mr. Satheesan felt that the CPI(M) district secretary was speaking like a “goon on the street”, Mr. Venugopal alleged that the Marxist party had conspired to kill Mr. Sudhakaran several times before and has now publicly admitted to it.
However, the CPI(M) leader defended his remarks saying that his speech was just a reply to what Mr. Sudhakaran said at the recent meeting where he had strongly “defended” Dheeraj’s murderers.
