Shah targets Pinarayi

BJP president Amit Shah launched a direct attack on Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday, linking political violence in Kannur district exclusively to the CPM.

Shah was speaking at Payyannur in Kannur, after flagging off the Janaraksha Yatra, a state-wide rally led by the BJP’s Kerala unit president Kummanam Rajasekharan.

The BJP chief reiterated that the CPM was directly responsible for violence in the politically volatile Kannur, pointing to the deaths of over 120 BJP-RSS activists in Kerala since 2001, 84 of them in the district.

“I want to ask Mr Vijayan — who is responsible for their deaths in his home district? If you don’t have an answer, I’ll say that you are,” the BJP chief said. Shah’s tirade was in line with the BJP’s slogan for the yatra — “All Have To Live. Against Jihadi-Red Terror”.

Since the CPM-led Left Democratic Front government assumed office in 2016, the BJP has intensified a national campaign against what it alleges is unprovoked violence by the CPM.

The CPM has dismissed the allegation as propaganda and has highlighted the Sangh Parivar’s role in cyclical violence in the state, specifically in Kannur.

Rajasekharan’s state-wide rally comes against the backdrop of bitter retorts by the CPM leaders to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement that the Left government was backing anti-national elements to protect political interests. The Janaraksha Yatra will culminate in Thiruvananthapuram on October 17.