A Communist Party of India (CPI) leader on Tuesday compared Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump, saying all three treat the media with disdain.
Former CPI legislator Rajaji Mathew Thomas, the Chief Editor of the CPI party organ, said he had never heard any Chief Minister of Kerala ordering the media to “get out”.
“He (Vijayan) is doing what Modi and of late Trump have been doing, treating the media with absolute disdain,” said Thomas.
“Such a thing has never happened in Kerala… Keeping the media away is an open admission that one does not want to take uncomfortable questions,” he said.
Last year, Vijayan angrily asked journalists taking pictures of a meeting chaired by him to get out. He came under severe criticism for this.
Since Vijayan assumed office in May 2016, time and again the two Communist parties, otherwise partners in the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), have engaged in a war of words.
Late last year, all four CPI cabinet ministers decided to boycott the weekly cabinet meeting to protest the way Vijayan they said arbitrarily handled things.
While the CPI-M is keen to get the Kerala Congress (Mani) into the LDF fold, the CPI is opposing it tooth and nail.
Vijayan is also bitterly opposed to the Congress but the CPI has a soft corner for that party — in order to take on the BJP.