Responding to Pinarayi Vijayan’s comment over absence of flags of the Congress and IUML in Rahul Gandhi’s roadshow in Wayanad, opposition leader V D Satheesan on Friday said the chief minister is trying to appease the BJP to escape the monthly pay-off case.
He asked Pinarayi Vijayan not to hold study classes for the UDF. “Let him do it at the AKG Centre,” Satheesan told media persons in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.
Satheesan said that during the last Lok Sabha election it was the BJP which raised the controversy on the green flag linking it to Pakistan. But this time, it is the turn of the CPI-M, he said.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday asked the Congress whether it abandoned its party flags and ally IUML’s flags during the roadshow to the Wayanad collectorate on Wednesday to submit Rahul Gandhi’s nomination papers for the Lok Sabha election, as it was scared of BJP
“Has the Congress declined to a position where it is even afraid of displaying its flag? Are they conceding to the demand of the Sangh Parivar that the Congress should relinquish their tri-coloured flag?” Pinarayi Vijayan asked at a press conference in Kochi on Thursday
He asked whether the decision to drop the flag of the IUML was taken in view of the Pakistan jibe by the BJP while referring to the presence of the party’s green flags during Rahul Gandhi’s campaign in Wayanad as part of the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
Hitting out at at the CPI-M, IUML national general secretary P K Kunhalikutty asked whether the CPI-M can hoist its flag independently in any part of India. He said tying the flags together is not an issue and the UDF is fighting elections unitedly.
IUML state general secretary P M A Salam quipped that the party is fighting to protect the national flag while the CPI-M is struggling to retain its national party status.
Leaders of both Congress and IUML asked the CPI-M leaders to mind its own business instead of dictating how the UDF should carry out its election campaign .