THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: BJP national president Amit Shah has said that he was willing to discuss development with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, but asked him whether he would own up moral responsibility for the killings of 13 BJP/RSS workers in the state after the LDF government came to power.
Mr Shah was addressing the finale of the Janaraksha Yatra taken out by BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan at Puthari-kandam grounds, East Fort here, on Tuesday. Responding to Mr Vijayan’s charge that the BJP was trying to deflect attention from the state government’s achievements, Mr Shah asked him whether the CPM was ready to fight the BJP on development and poverty alleviation.
He said that after the LDF government assumed office in the state, the maximum number of killings had happened in Kannur, the home district of Mr Vijayan. “Whenever the LDF governments were in power, our party workers were attacked. Pinarayi Vijayan got scared of the Janaraksha Yatra which forced him to delay the action against the accused in the solar scam,” said Mr Amit Shah who also targeted the Congress. The CPM governments in Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal had indulged in corruption and dynastic politics, he said and warned that corruption and murder politics would signal the end of the left government.
Criticising CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, he said the Janaraksha Yatra was held not only in Kerala, but across the country against ‘red terror and jihad.’ “Yechury had said that it was undemocratic to take out protest marches to the offices of political parties. But his party workers had destroyed our party offices by hurling bombs,” added Mr Amit Shah. The BJP had to conduct the Janaraksha Yatra as the CPM was perpetrating political violence in the state, he said. “The martyrdom of Rajesh and other workers would not go in vain. Punishment prescribed by law will be given to the culprits,” he said.
