4 months ago
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Police step up security amid reports of Congress-CPI(M) violence and Opposition march to the police headquarters on Saturday
Thiruvananthapuram
The government and the Opposition struck stridently recriminatory positions as tit-for-tat violence between Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and Congress workers escalated on the eve of the culmination of the Cabinet’s public outreach programme Navakerala Sadas in the capital on Friday.
The Congress appears poised to square off against the government by organising a mammoth march to the State Police Headquarters on Saturday to direct its ire against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for allegedly subverting law enforcement to brutalise Opposition activists flaunting black flags at his motorcade.
The party also seeks to politically counterweigh the high-profile climax of the Cabinet’s 40-day odyssey from halls of power in the government secretariat to town hall meetings in 140 Assembly constituencies in the State by ratcheting up anti-government street protests.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K. Sudhakaran and Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan indicated that Saturday’s demonstration would send a loud message against Mr. Vijayan’s “sadistic” attempts to stifle democratic dissent using the police and CPI(M) “goons”.
Reports of Congress-CPI(M) violence at Kattakada, Attingal, Venjaranmoodu and Kilimanoor and Mr. Satheesan’s televised visit to a Congress worker’s house allegedly vandalised by CPI(M) activists in the suburbs reflected the rising political temperature marked by increasingly frayed tempers on either side of the political aisle.
The fraught political climate has put the police on their toes. They have commenced preventive arrests, intensified night patrolling and stepped up security in the capital.
Mr Vijayan and CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan accused Mr. Satheesan and Mr. Sudhakaran of attempting to unleash anarchy in the State to vent their annoyance at the “startlingly large turnout of people” at Navakerala Sadas venues.
“Opposition activists threw themselves in front of the Cabinet’s bus and used chilli powder, flag staffs and steel pellets to confront the police during demonstrations merely because the public had roundly rejected Mr. Satheesan’s call to boycott Navakerala Sadas,” Mr Vijayan said.
Mr. Govindan said the Congress leadership’s “open call for violence” dovetailed with the BJP’s attempt to portray Keraa as a hive of lawlessness. “The Congress leadership in Kerala is sinking fast in the quicksand of Hindutva politics,” Mr. Govindan said.
