BJP vice-president alleges plot to attack him, Kerala police register 2 cases

AP Abdullakutty said his car was hit twice. “We felt some people were chasing us after we left the hotel in a hurry,” he said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) all-India vice president AP Abdullakutty has alleged that there was an attempt to manhandle him in a tea shop in Kerala’s Malappuram late on Friday night and later a truck hit the car in which he was travelling.

BJP vice president AP Abdullakutty has been attacked by a gang in Malappuram.(ANI)

Malappuram police superintendent Abdul Kareem said two different cases were registered. “We have registered two cases. The truck driver was summoned for questioning. We will find out whether it was intentional or an accident,” he said.

Kutty, also a former MP, said when he stopped his car to have some food in Veliyamkode, two people came towards him and started heaping verbal abuses at him. He said he was on his way to Kannur from Thiruvananthapuram on Friday. He said later in Randathani, a truck hit his car on the rear. “My car was hit twice. Later the driver said he fell asleep. It is not true. We felt some people were chasing us after we left the hotel in a hurry,” he said.

BJP state president K Surendran has condemned the incident and the party observed a protest day throughout the state. He joined the BJP a year ago and was the state vice-president. He was elevated as the national vice-president in the latest reshuffle of the party. His elevation was quite surprising. Eying minority votes, the party had elevated two leaders from the state, Kutty and party spokesman Tom Vadakkan. Both crossed over from the Congress camp. Kerala assembly polls are six months away.

Kutty, 53, began his political career with the Students Federation of India, CPI(M) youth outfit. He was elected to Parliament from Kannur twice as CPI(M) candidate in 1999 and 2009 elections. He was expelled from the party in 2009 after he praised then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi’s development model. He was a member of the assembly twice on Congress ticket. In 2019, he was expelled from the Congress after he openly praised the PM’s ‘Swach Bharat Mission’. Later he joined the BJP but his sudden elevation as the national vice-president left some murmurs in the faction-ridden state unit.