Pinarayi to BJP: You have not understood Kerala, we are ready for any challenge

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. (Source: Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal/File)

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday hit back at the BJP’s ongoing campaign in the state against what the saffron party calls “red terror”, and said that the Communist movement will not budge in the face of such “flamboyance” or “troop movement” by the Sangh Parivar.

Faced with criticism about political violence in his home district, Kannur, Vijayan, addressing a party function here, said, “If the BJP thinks something can be done here (Kerala) by launching RSS men, who may be now chief ministers or Union ministers or MPs, nothing is going to happen. If you (BJP) are posing a challenge, you should remember that this state is ready to take that up.”

Calling the ‘Jana Raksha Yatra’, launched by BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday, a “damp squib”, he said Kerala has nothing to learn from a party that considers Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse as God. “We have nothing to learn from you. (Instead) you should learn what this state is — you haven’t understood it; we are not going to be stupefied before your flamboyance, wealth or weapons.”

Maintaining that the BJP and RSS had begun the cycle of violence in the state, in Delhi, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the Left Front is being targeted because it is the only “sincere and steadfast” ideological and organisational opposition to BJP. He also said the whole Kerala march is a ploy to deflect attention from the growing public anger and discontent over the Narendra Modi government’s performance.

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Releasing a fact-sheet, Yechury argued that the CPI(M) and constituents of the LDF in Kerala have been at the receiving end of “murderous attacks mounted by the RSS and its outfits”. He said, “From 2000 to 2017, Kerala Police figures show, 85 CPI(M) workers and 65 RSS (and BJP) workers were killed. The (latest round of) RSS attack began with the murder of a CPI(M) worker on the day of LDF’s electoral victory in Kerala (in May 2016),” he said.

“Why did they throw bombs at Pinarayi Vijayan’s victory rally? They had been accumulating arms since the day the elections results were declared…. And then say the Left government is engaged in violence,” the CPI(M) general secretary said.

He said that the CPI(M) will organise a nation-wide protest on October 9 against the BJP’s politics of violence.

Taking on his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath, Vijayan posted on social media, “I am thanking you for giving an opportunity to tell the country that the infant mortality rate in Kerala is far better than (even) developed countries.’’

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CPI(M)’s Kerala unit secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said BJP president Amit Shah’s exhortation to party workers to march to CPI(M) headquarters in each state capital is a public appeal to trigger violence and anarchy, and will create law and order problems.