Thiruvananthapuram: The war of words between Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and opposition Congress state president K Sudhakaran escalated on Saturday as the two levelled serious allegations against each other.
Sudhakaran called Vijayan a “political criminal” while denying kidnapping and other charges the chief minister made against him. He said Vijayan was accused of murder. Sudhakaran added he never carried a pistol, or a bullet, like the chief minister. He was referring to a 2007 case wherein security personnel at the Chennai airport found five live cartridges of a .38-revolver in Vijayan’s laptop case. Vijayan was questioned before he was released after he gave a written explanation that the cartridges were of his licensed revolver.
Sudhakaran said Vijayan should not denigrate the position he is holding by making “cheap comments” and dared him to investigate charges against him.
The two belong to Kannur and were in the same college but did not see eye to eye. On Friday, Vijayan quoted a late unnamed Congress leader telling him that Sudhakaran planned to kidnap his children. Sudhakaran rejected the allegation and asked Vijayan why did not he report such a serious issue to the police.
“Raising such a weird allegation against the political opponent after many years is not fair. Why did not he file a police complaint then? He is not even revealing the name of the Congress leader who told him about this kidnap theory,” Sudhakaran said. He said he was not involved in any murder case like Vijayan. “He was one of the accused in Jan Sangh leader Vadikkal Ramakrishnan’s murder in 1969,” he said citing the copy of an old First Information Report.
{{/usCountry}}“Raising such a weird allegation against the political opponent after many years is not fair. Why did not he file a police complaint then? He is not even revealing the name of the Congress leader who told him about this kidnap theory,” Sudhakaran said. He said he was not involved in any murder case like Vijayan. “He was one of the accused in Jan Sangh leader Vadikkal Ramakrishnan’s murder in 1969,” he said citing the copy of an old First Information Report.
{{/usCountry}}He said a Congress leader was injured in an attack allegedly carried out by Vijayan years ago.
A Malayalam weekly carried an interview of Sudhakaran last week in which he took pot-shots at Vijayan and ridiculed his “macho man” image. He said once in college in Kannur during a brawl, he kicked and knocked down Vijayan. Sudhakaran said Vijayan’s macho image was just a media creation. He later said he told this to the reporter of the weekly off the record and it was wrongly included in the interview.
On Friday, Vijayan hit out at Sudhakaran saying after he got the top Congress post in the state, the latter started fantasizing. “All are aware of Sudhakaran’s track records-- whether it is sand smuggling, benami business, and many other illegal activities... I do not know who gave him a certificate to talk about others,” he said.
He said when political opponents came close to him during college days, he clapped his hands in a peculiar manner to make a deafening sound and all would flee from the scene.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called the barbs a ploy to divert attention from the tree felling case. “Trees worth several crores of rupees were plundered last year. Claims and counter-claims over a physical attack in college five decades ago is a ploy to divert attention,” said Union minister and BJP leader V Muraleedharan.
He said a fresh case should be registered against Vijayan in the light of Sudhakaran’s latest disclosure about the alleged murder.
Ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader A Vijayaraghavan defended Vijayan. “How can you keep quiet when a person is making such false claims. Sudhakaran is talking in the language of a street fighter,” he said.
Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said Vijayan should restrain from making weird claims over minor incidents that took place decades ago.