Rahul Gandhi's contest in Wayanad wrong decision: CPI

COIMBATORE: CPI on Sunday said Congress president Rahul Gandhi's contest in Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala against the party candidate was a "wrong decision" and denied any match fixing between Congress and the Left parties.

"It is a wrong decision by Gandhi. It has sent a wrong signal among the people about the intention when both the Left parties and Congress were fighting against the BJP," CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy told reporters here.

He replied in the negative to a question whether there was any understanding between the CPM and Congress in Wayanad.

"It is not correct. There is no match fixing by CPM or other Left parties," Reddy said.

The ruling LDF in Kerala has fielded CPI's P P Suneer in Wayanad while the BJP-led NDA named Thushar Vellappally, president of Bharath Dharma Jana Sena, for the seat.

Top leaders of both the CPM and CPI have criticised the Congress move. Gandhi, who filed his nomination last week, has, however, said he would not speak against the Left during his campaign though he understood CPM has to attack him.

On the Kashmir issue, Reddy said it had been proved in the past 70 years that "no bullets and army can solve" it. The issue should be solved only through discussion, he added.

The CPI leader, who is here to campaign for the DMK-led Secular Progress Alliance candidates in the Lok Sabha elections, claimed BJP would lose and not gain much in southern states.

In the last two years, BJP has faced defeats in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, he said adding the Left parties were trying to forge a post-poll alliance of anti-BJP opposition parties for forming the next government at the Centre.