Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan stoked fresh controversy after he passed unsavoury comments against Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) chief Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal.
At a campaign rally on Sunday for P Sarin, the LDF-supported independent candidate for Palakkad by-election, Pinarayi was highly critical of Thangal. He said, “Thangal is behaving like a regular follower of Jamaat-e-Islami.”
The IUML is the second-largest coalition partner in Kerala’s Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). Leader of Opposition in Assembly VD Satheesan said the Chief Minister made those comments to make the ‘Sangh parivar’ happy.
“The Chief Minister’s derogatory remarks against a secular person like Thangal is, in truth, to make the Sangh Parivar happy,” Satheesan said, adding: “The BJP state president recently asked if they couldn’t criticise Thangal. ‘We will criticise Thangal,’ he had said.”
Satheesan accused Pinarayi Vijayan of speaking in the same “voice” as that of the BJP state chief. “Both are talking in the same way,” the Congress leader said.
Meanwhile, IUML’s Malayalam mouthpiece Chandrika, also lambasted Pinarayi. “Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s attempt to evaluate Thangal’s qualifications reflects his and his party’s close ties with communal forces,” an opinion piece in Chandrika read.
In the editorial, the IUML said the people of Kerala fondly call Panakkad Thangal as the brand ambassador of communal harmony, and the Chief Minister should not come to “assess his qualifications”.
The editorial also claimed that at a time when the Sangh Parivar forces were trying to destroy the state’s communal harmony and making all attempts to create communal polarisation through other issues, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the Left government were constantly doing things that support them.
The IUML mouthpiece also asked why the chief minister got agitated because a former BJP leader came to a secular fold without any conditions and sought the blessings of Thangal.