THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A day after the tit-for-tat onslaught by new Congress state president K Sudhakaran, he and other party leaders remained on the offensive on Sunday attacking Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
In a Facebook post, Sudhakaran termed his verbal attack on Pinarayi personal and said he would continue in the same vein till the CM expresses readiness for a political debate.
The Congress camp is upbeat after the new chief’s aggressive posturing, and more leaders, including K Muraleedharan and Ramesh Chennithala, on Sunday jumped on the bandwagon blaming Pinarayi of being responsible for the current turn of events.
A section of Congress leaders believes Sudhakaran has scored in the first round by denting the “invincible” image of Pinarayi. At the same time, another section feels personal fights should have been avoided.
Meanwhile, the CPM camp is treading cautiously in its response to the allegations, with some opining that there is no need for the chief minister to respond any further on the issue as he has made his stand clear.
In the Facebook post, Sudhakaran said “political criminals” like Pinarayi have to be dealt with in a “personal manner”. Pinarayi has been building up a cult of personal worship inside the party like a dictator.
“Several victims of his illegal attempts to protect his own interest still live in north Kerala villages. The political life of V S Achuthanandan, M A Baby and Shailaja Teacher are examples of his political dictatorship inside the party,” Sudhakaran wrote. He said the state will slip into anarchy if a person like Pinarayi remains in power.
“This is what the state has been witnessing for the past five years. This has to be stopped, for which he has to be politically exposed or attacked personally. So, I will stop only when Pinarayi is ready for a political discourse, setting aside the rotten personal worship in the party,” he posted.
This was followed by remarks from other Congress leaders. Muraleedharan said if the CM comes up with political allegations, he would naturally get strong replies from the Congress camp. However, he made clear that Congress does not believe in violence.
“There was an attempt (by the CM) to divert the attention of people from pressing issues like illegal tree felling and Kodakara hawala case by creating a storm over an incident that took place 50 years ago,” Muraleedharan said.
Former Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said since the CM himself was responsible for the ongoing controversy, it was up to him to end the verbal duel. He doubted whether the CM was unnerved by Sudhakaran’s elevation in the party.
Muslim League national general secretary P K Kunhalikutty asked, “Is it wise for a chief minister to peddle his old heroic campus tales when the state is going through a tough period following the second wave of Covid. The focus of discussion is moving away from the pressing issues the state now faces,” he said.
On the other hand, the CPM camp was cautious on Sunday in its response to the allegations of Congress leaders. The CM is unlikely to respond to Sudhakaran’s allegations the way he had done on Friday in the next media briefing.
However, senior CPM leader and former minister A K Balan said Sudhakaran is trying to create an atmosphere of political violence in the state.
“We ended this controversy yesterday itself, but Sudhakaran is trying to go back to his old style of functioning. The Congress leadership should make its stand clear on the style Sudhakaran was trying to experiment with,” he said in a FB post.
He said the CPM would reveal who had planned to abduct Pinarayi’s children at an appropriate time. He also welcomed Dominic Presentation’s statement that the political affairs committee of the state Congress would look into the statements of Sudhakaran seriously.
The war of words between Pinarayi and Sudhakaran had escalated over the past couple of days with the two levelling serious allegations against each other.