THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Political strafing in the post-Aruvikkara bypoll phase continued on Thursday, with ‘Veekshanam’ daily, the official mouthpiece of the Congress in the state, wooing the CPI in an edit. The CPI was urged to come out of the tainted relationship with the CPM and it was reminded that while the leading partner had fattened at the expense of coalition partners, the main ally had become emaciated.
“The LDF is a sinking ship. As a party which is not putrefied to the extent of the CPM, the CPI should find ways to save itself,” the edit titled ‘Will CPI hear the death knell’ opined. It also found CPI leaders as non-arrogant and who doesn’t spit venom through their words like the CPM leaders. “The nostalgic memories of 10 years of association with the Congress-led front is still maintained by CPI men secretly,” so goes the pampering. “Though only second in the Congress-led front numerically, there was no hesitation to give chief ministership to the late C Achutha Menon twice and to P K Vasudevan Nair,” it was reminded. An open call was made by Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala also, in tow with the ‘Veekshanam’ edit, by stating that the Left parties would be welcomed to the UDF if they severed its ties with the LDF.
CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran, however, said in an FB post that the Veekshanam edit lacked ‘Veekshanam’ (outlook) on the principles and policies of the CPI. However, he thanked all the good words for his party in the edit. CPM PB member Pinarayi Vijayan ridiculed the edit and felt that people would pooh-pooh it. “The state and central leadership of CPI had given clarifications on it long ago,” he said. It was the IUML, which had kick-started the talk of inviting the CPI to the UDF, recently.
