Senior Congress leader A. K. Antony, on Sunday came down on CPI-M, the ruling party in Kerala, for ruling out forming an anti-BJP pact with Congress. He even said that opposing Congress in the fight against the BJP is nothing less than being a traitor. His remarks came soon after CPI-M’s central committee meeting in Kolkata ruled out the alliance.
While Sitaram Yechury was in favour of forming an alliance with Congress, Prakash Karat, was not in favour of any alliance with Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Yechury’s draft got support from West Bengal unit, where after 2016 alliance with Congress, their performance was disastrous, and Tripura, while Karat got support from the Kerala unit.
However, Congress slammed CPI-M for playing a ‘spoilsport’ in an effort to form a ‘secular front’ against the BJP. Which is ironical since CPI-M workers are accused of brutally murdering RSS workers and other Hindu activists in Kerala. Even BJP President Amit Shah has blamed the current chief minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan for the political killings taking place in Kerala, on a very regular basis.
The last couple of years have seen numerous instances of violence perpetrated against RSS sympathizers with both workers and their offices getting targeted. In February 2016, year a 27 year old RSS worker was hacked to death in front of his parents in Kannur. In January last year, a BJP worker was stabbed to death at Andaloor in Dharmadam which is the constituency of the current CM of Kerala. We had also reported how an RSS office in Kannur was vandalised by alleged CPM workers, a day after it was inaugurated. It was also alleged that the office had been attacked a whopping 18 times during its construction.
In May last year, two CPM workers were arrested in Kerala for the murder of an RSS worker. All this while Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has tried to downplay the murders of RSS workers in Kerala by claiming how CPM victims in the political murder wars was higher than BJP/RSS on basis of partial data.
In October 2016, the RSS establishment had claimed that as many as 350 of its workers have been a victim of political murders in the last 7 decades.
Meanwhile, Kerala State Congress President MM Hassan also ridiculed CPI-M for praising North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and having a pro-China stand. ‘While the policies in China and North Korea are acceptable to them, they feel allergic to the policies of the Congress party,’ Hassan has reportedly said.