Pinarayi takes on Amit Shah over adverse Wayanad remark
Kerala chief minister also hits out at Congress for hurting prospects of farmers
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday criticised Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah’s sneering remark about Wayanad constituency in Kerala, likening it to some place in Pakistan.
The Wayanad constituency has been pitchforked into national reckoning following Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest from there.
“Does he (Shah) know anything about Wayanad?”, Pinarayi Vijayan asked during an election meeting in Kalpetta on Thursday. Vijayan was adhering to Shah’s remark a few days ago, when the BJP president said “when a procession is taken out (in Wayanad) it is difficult to make out whether it is in India or Pakistan.”
“Shah spoke in a humiliating manner about Wayanad. Does he know anything about the role played by Wayanad in the struggle against the British Empire? Only if he participated in the independence struggle would he know anything about it, isn’t it?”, asked Vijayan.
“Who doesn’t know that it was the local tribal fighters of Wayanad who joined forces with Pazhassi Raji against the British? Is it fair to speak in such derogatory manner about such a place?” asked the chief minister.
Vijayan also criticised the Congress, pointing out that it was the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) pact that hurt the prospects of farmers in Wayanad and the rest of Kerala. He said the ASEAN agreement was signed with the knowledge of Rahul Gandhi, and that farmers in Kerala were still suffering the fallouts of that agreement.
In the Kozhikode constituency, Communist Party of India’s P.P. Suneer has the challenge of facing Congress president Rahul Gandhi. The Left parties have criticised Rahul’s decision to contest from Wayanad, pointing out that it goes against the grain of his party’s national objective of unseating the BJP.
Ironically, Congress has an alliance with the CPM in other states including neighbouring Tamil Nadu, but in Kerala the two parties are opposing each other, with both stating a common objective of unseating the BJP.