Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan
In a veiled counter to criticism of his government over political violence, Kerala Chief Minister Pinaryi Vijayan today asserted such incidents have come down and accused “certain quarters” of attempting to tarnish the state’s image.
In a Facebook post, he said deliberate attempts were being made by certain quarters to consciously create trouble and tarnish the state’s image. He also appealed to political leaders to be vigilant against such attempts.
In most of the districts, including Kannur, it has been possible to bring down cases of violence, Vijayan said. “At the national level, while conscious efforts are being made to portray Kerala in a bad light, the state government had effectively intervened to bring down violence cases, which the figures show”, he said.
“Deliberate attempts are being made from certain centres to consciously create trouble and bring disrepute to the state”, he said. Pointing that political violence had come down in the southern state, he said, in 2017, a total of 1,522 incidents of political violence and five political murders were reported as against 1,768 and 14 respectively in the previous year. He was apparently responding to the charges made by BJP/RSS and Congress that political violence was rising under the LDF rule.
BJP President Amit Shah had in October last year attacked the CPI(M)-led LDF government over the political violence in Kerala and asked the chief minister if he was prepared to take moral responsibility for the “killing of 13 innocent BJP/RSS workers.” The saffron party had also launched a 15-day ‘Jana Raksha Yatra’ from Kannur, the politically volatile district where BJP and CPI(M) workers frequently clashed, to highlight the ‘Left party’s atrocities’.
The BJP had alleged that 13 BJP/RSS workers had been killed in the state after the CPI(M)-led-government came to power in May 2016. The Congress has alleged that the ruling parties at the Centre (BJP) and the state (CPI-M) indulged in political violence.