KOLLAM: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said there was nothing wrong in him calling RSP leader NK Premachandran ‘a scoundrel’ (paranari). “Is there any doubt?” was Pinarayi’s retort when asked if he still stood by his controversial remark made in 2014.
Pinarayi was then the party’s state secretary. His choice of words against the RSP leader was widely perceived to have done considerable damage to the LDF candidate then. Premachandran is the UDF candidate for Kollam. “In politics, probity is important and everyone is expected to have it. Who knows what they do to the UDF would be far worse than what they did to us,” said Pinarayi.
Premachandran became a persona non grata to the CPM when the RSP broke its decades-old alliance with the LDF and switched over to the UDF.