Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said that it is unbecoming of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to crassly lie that Kerala was a State torn by violent political strife.
In an FB post, Mr. Vijayan countered Mr. Modi’s statement at a rally in Varanasi that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activists worked under the shadow of death at the hands of political rivals in Kerala and West Bengal.
Mr. Modi had also said that his party workers braved pistols and knives and their mothers and wives were uncertain if their sons or husbands would return home after political work.
Mr. Vijayan said Mr. Modi’s lie flew in the face of Kerala’s record as a peaceful and secular State with an outstanding law and order and human rights track record.
He said that Mr. Modi had built his statement on lies propagated by the RSS and its proxies in the profit-motivated media. The RSS had cynically used lies and rumour to create communal riots, stir mistrust between communities, deepen caste and religious schism and divide people on loyalties based on faith to garner votes of a particular section of the electorate.
Mr. Vijayan said in Kerala nobody was above the law. The RSS and Sangh Parivar enjoyed no special protection or patronage as they did in BJP-ruled States.
The RSS had repeatedly tried to divide Kerala on communal lines. It had unleashed widespread violence to sow fear and mistrust among the people belonging to different faiths. However, Kerala had withstood efforts of the RSS. The results of the Lok Sabha election in Kerala would come as a firm rejection of the BJP-RSS brand of divisive politics.