Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State president K. Surendran has dismissed as ‘farce’ the statements by All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] general secretary Sitaram Yechury that the Congress and the CPI(M) did not have any political understanding in Kerala.
Does not the State of Kerala figure in the Opposition’s idea of India, Mr. Surendran mocked, while speaking to the media on Friday. He said it was certain that the UDF and the LDF in Kerala would revive their previous alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections also, just to ensure that the BJP did not win.
Kerala had already seen how this unholy alliance of UDF and LDF panned out in constituencies like Thiruvananthapuram, Manjeswaram, and Palakkad. It was to prevent the party workers from questioning this that the national leaders were declaring that there was no alliance in Kerala, he alleged.
“When Mr. Yechury campaigns in Kerala ahead of the Lok Sabha election, who will he be speaking against? Will he be able to attack the Opposition’s Prime Ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi and his party? Will Rahul Gandhi speak against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala,” Mr. Surendran asked.
He said that in West Bengal, where Trinamool Congress activists were unleashing violence on CPI(M) activists, the only resistance they were facing was from the BJP. It was evident that in Kerala, where Congress activists were up against the violence of CPI(M), the Congress leadership would not protect their partymen, he said. The Kerala situation clearly reveals the hoax that the so-called Opposition alliance is, he claimed.
On Manipur
Regarding Manipur, the Prime Minister had promised strong action against the perpetrators of violence. But in Kerala, the CPI(M) and the Congress were spreading canards for serving their own political interests, he said. Mr. Surendran claimed that the violence in Manipur was not caste/community-based and that there was information coming in that the rioters were getting external help.
