Senior Cong leader passes unsavoury remarks against CM; party MLA denounces it

Senior Congress leader and Kannur MPK Sudhakaran on Wednesday reportedly made some unsavouryremarks against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan,harping on hisfamily background andbeing the first CM '' to buy a helicopterfor travel'', comments which were denounced by a party MLA.

He made the remarks at the Thalassery leg of theopposition Congresses led UDF's ''Aishwarya Yatra'.

The UDF had launched the 22 day state-wide really fromKambala on January 31 to highlight the 'misrule' of the rulingLDF.

''....Pinarayi Vijayan, who held the revolutionary flameof the working class from a family of toddy-tappers and ledyou from the front, holding the red flag, where is he now? Pinarayi Vijayan, who hails from the family of toddy-tappers, travels by helicopter after hebecame the chiefminister and will be remembered as the first CM from theworking class to use a helicopter,'' Sudhakaran said.

He asked whether CPI(M) workers were feeling 'ashamed'over this.

Sudhakaran's remarks drew disapproval from party leaderand Alappuzha MLA Shanimol Usman, who told reporters it was'unfortunate' and that he should withdraw the statement andtender an apology.

Neither the Chief Minister nor the ruling LDF reacted tothe remarks.

The Chief Minister had to face similar remarks when theLeft government decided to implement the September 28,2018Supreme Court verdict, allowing entry of women of all agesinto the Sabarimala temple Earlier in 2019, BJP state vice-president M Sivarajan hadsaid that it would have been better had Vijayan ''gone back totoddy tapping'' instead of being the Chief Minister.

During the initial protests against the states decisionto implement the top court order, a local lady in her 50sreportedly used a derogatory term to denote Vijayans caste, avideo of which went viral.

She later shot a video apologising to the Chief Minister.

Prior to that, Janmabhoomi, a BJP mouthpiece, had alsocarried a cartoon, referring to his caste of traditionaltoddy tappers and implying he was unfit for the job.

However, Vijayan had brushed aside these remarks, sayingthe saffron party always reminded him of his caste andexpected him to follow his family's footsteps, but that timeshad changed, a new era has come about and they would have tounderstand it.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)