MALAPPURAM: Responding to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s remarks equating Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leaders, Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan said the speeches of both Pinarayi and Modi are being prepared by the same centre and they are, in fact, speaking in one voice.
“Both of them target Rahul Gandhi. Pinarayi Vijayan and the CPM have taken over the BJP’s plans to character assassinate Rahul. In Kerala, the CPM and Pinarayi are repeating what Modi and the BJP propagated against Rahul 10 years ago. Modi said Rahul escaped to Kerala without contesting in north India. Pinarayi also repeated the same. It is up to the respective parties to decide who will contest from which seats and how they will campaign,” Satheesan said.
Countering the CM’s statement that Satheesan lost his mental balance nine times during the Nava Kerala Sadas, he said, “Pinarayi is struggling as the chief minister without even being able to pay welfare pensions. Due to the crisis, there is no medicine in any of the hospitals in the state. Maveli stores are out of stock while the treasury is empty. And when I criticise the CM over all these issues, he says that I have lost my mental balance. To think that those opposing him are mentally ill is actually the disease,” he said.
He further said, “The chief minister first told a lie that the Congress MPs did not participate in the discussion when the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill came to the Parliament. MPs Shashi Tharoor, E T Muhammed Basheer, N K Premachandran and other members then sent him a video showing them participating in the discussion. So who is lying? The Congress has been opposing the CAA since 2019. Pinarayi has been repeating the lie that the Congress is not opposing the Act for the last 35 days, despite Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi publicly announcing that they will abolish the Act,” he said.
Responding to the controversy over absence of IUML flags during campaigns, he said, the party has taken no such decision.
“Both Union Minister Smriti Irani and Pinarayi are saying that we are trying to hide the IUML connection. If it was so, would the League have been made a part of the INDIA bloc? League leaders attend all meetings of the INDIA front. Every advertisement of the UDF contains the IUML,” Satheesan said.
