THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the Lok Sabha elections almost at the doorstep, it is a do-or-die situation for the UDF. And the opposition has lost no opportunity to challenge the LDF government as the Nava Kerala Sadas reaches its fag end. The agitations have even spiralled into street fights between the student organisations from both sides.
To corner the LDF in all quarters in the coming days, the UDF camp has decided to up its ante against the ruling front. Leading the effort is a charged-up Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan, in the absence of Congress state president K Sudhakaran who is scheduled to leave for the US next week.
With just three months left for the general elections, the LDF was determined to regain their lost image, from that of a corrupt force. The Opposition initially compared Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy who had created a record by holding the mass contact programme.
Later, they attacked the LDF government for its failure to resolve the petitions given by people in various districts. Pinarayi's meeting with the media daily saw him retaliating to the Congress and UDF leaders’ allegations against the government’s public outreach programme. When Pinarayi’s caravan reached Alappuzha, the youth organisations -- KSU and Youth Congress -- came to the rescue of the Opposition, which saw the youth activists being attacked by the chief minister’s gunmen.
Senior leader and former Congress state president Mullappally Ramachandran told TNIE that the UDF started gaining political mileage after the Nava Kerala Sadas entered Alappuzha. At the same time, Mullappally said that Pinarayi has been successful to a certain extent in removing the “corruption” tagline attached to his LDF government.
“The CPM workers had been a demoralised and confused lot following a series of scams and the poor fiscal status. In Malabar, Pinarayi’s yatra has to a certain extent managed to shed the feeling among the common people that his government is corrupt. But once the Nava Kerala Sadas reached Alappuzha, it took a turn in favour of the UDF. We still have not lost time as the UDF has a conducive atmosphere to dethrone the Pinarayi government,” Mullappally said.
On Saturday, the concluding day of the Nava Kerala Sadas, the Congress will hold a mass march to the DGP’s office in Thiruvananthapuram. It is slated to be led by Sudhakaran. He has claimed that close to 15 lakh party workers will attend the march, which is set to be Sudhakaran’s last party programme before he proceeds to the US for treatment.
Senior Congress MP Kodikunnil Suresh also exuded confidence that the UDF will repeat the 2019 Lok Sabha polls’ outcome in 2024.