Punished for praising PM Modi: Congress expels two time MLA AP Abdullakutty

Thiruvananthapuram, June 03: The Kerala unit of the Congress has expelled AP Abdullakutty, a two time MLA from the grand old party, for praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This comes a week after Abdullakutty showered praise on Modi and claimed that the Prime Minister follows the "Gandhian model of development" in a Facebook post. Abdullakutty's Facebook post had left the grand old party fuming and Congress' Kerala president Mullapally Ramachandran had sought an explanation from Abdullakutty.

Even senior Congress leader K Muraleedharan, who was recently elected to the Lok Sabha, said the act of praising PM Modi by any congress worker cannot be accepted and was wrong.

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Abdullakutty was in the CPI (M) till 2009. He was sacked from the party for praising Modi who was then the Gujarat chief minister. He later joined the Congress.

In a Facebook post, titled "On Narendra Modi's impressive victory", he said the secret of the PM's success was that he had adopted Gandhian values. He also lauded the Ujjwala Yojana in which the government's aim was to distribute 50 million LPG connections to women of BPL families.

"Mahatma Gandhi had told social workers that when you formulate a policy, you should remember the face of a poor man whom you have met. Modi implemented it accurately," Abdullakutty said in his post.

Congress' VM Sudheeran has called Abdullakutty an opportunist for praising Modi and said that his statement is a hint that he won't remain in the party.