THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:Who is communal and who is not? And which ‘card’ is out to woo the voters even when all are eager to profess secularism? Fixing the onus upon each other became the main concern of the treasury benches and the Opposition in the course of discussion for demand for grants on Tuesday, which had also seen the government regaining lost ground over the faux paus in school textbooks printing and distribution.
No wonder, critical discussions zoomed to the level of genetic changes happening in the IUML and CPM, leaving topics related to Industries Department on the wayside. The war of words and accusations, triggered by Thomas Isaac on Monday over the ward delimitation exercise, continued its run today also.
CPM Independent MLA K T Jaleel took the gauntlet to attack his alma mater IUML by repeating the Hindu-Muslim panchayat remarks. Panchayat Minister M K Muneer urged Speaker N Sakthan to expunge the remarks and asked Jaleel not to teach him secularism. Jaleel also tried to turn the tables on the ties of a few IUML leaders with Jamaat-e-Islami.
A Pradeep Kumar (CPM) saw a communal chromosome combination in the IUML, while Industries Minister P K Kunhalikutty not only found CPM totally panicked and confused but the party is curiously holding ‘two cards’ now, instead of the ‘one card’ flashed in the past.
Pradeep Kumar charged that IUML is a party which makes profits in the name of minorities. If the BJP makes political gains out of communal tensions, for IUML ,it is financial, he alleged. For C Divakaran (CPI), the late BJP leader K G Marar’s book mentioning the relationship with the Congress continued to be a stick to beat the UDF. M Shamsudeen (IUML) opined that BJP is reaping the campaign of the CPM and the latter is trying to oppose communalism in the same path of the former V D Satheesan (Cong) observed that CPM has become a non-entity at the national level and even the names of its leaders have been forgotten by the people.
Varkala Kahar (Cong) poured more fuel to the fire, stating that a CPM district committee member from West Bengal is engaged in road works in Varkala.
In a day sans an adjournment motion, as a notice for discussing the textbooks issue was disallowed during zero hour and taken up during the time of submissions, the heat and dust over it kept subsiding.