BJP slams Kerala CM, LDF govt over Kannur attacks, calls it Red Terror'
Thiruvananthapuram: BJP on Sunday slammed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the LDF government for "increasing" number of political attacks in Kannur district and sought a probe by CBI or a Supreme Court or High Court judge on the "red terror" unleashed against its workers.
A five-member delegation of BJP MPs, led by party national general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Bhupendra Yadav, on Sunday met Kerala Governor P Sathasivam at Raj Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram and apprised him of the "complex situation" in north Kerala's Kannur.
"We explained the complex situation and handed over a list of crimes committed by left volunteers against BJP and Sangh workers in Kerala," Yadav later told a press conference.
The MPs also visited the state BJP office which was attacked a few days ago.
"We appreciate positive attitude of the governor," he said adding that a list of "atrocities" against BJP workers has been submitted to Sathasivam and the state Home Secretary.
"We require an independent inquiry, independent from Kerala government... an independent SIT may be under CBI, or under a sitting judge of High Court or Supreme Court so things will come very clear," Yadav said.
Alleging that incidents of political violence were high in the native villages of Vijayan and party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan in Kannur, he said it was the job of the state government to tackle all kinds of violence.
"If people in Chief Minister's village are not safe, then who is safe in the state? Is the CM ready to take the moral responsibility (of these attacks)," he asked.
Asked if the delegation would meet the chief minister, Nandakumar Hegde, MP, asked "why should we?"
When it was pointed out by a scribe that the BJP's complaints were mainly against the chief minister, he retorted "he (CM) should be aware of that."
Attacking the chief minister, BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi claimed Vijayan had in 2008, when he was the party secretary, stated that the "Bengal line needs to be followed
i.e the political opposition needs to be done away with without bleeding."
"That is the mindset state is engaging in when he has become the chief minister," she alleged.
"The person who is the chief minister has forgotten the fact that he is no longer a marxist leader, which he used to be, but that he is the chief minister of the state and when law and order is failing, he is failing in his administrative capacity," she said.
"Red terror and its peak is what we are seeing under Vijayan's governance and that is the model which India under its democratic regime refuses to accept," Lekhi said.
She alleged that the chief minister had failed to stop atrocities against BJP workers.
About 400 cases of violence have been registered in four months after the LDF government came to power, she claimed, adding that 200 BJP workers have been assaulted, maimed or killed, and 200 homes burnt.
"There have been three unnatural deaths, including that of Kokila Suresh, a BJP councillor who died in a road accident in Kollam a couple of days ago," she said.
