What’s Rahul Gandhi up to, asks Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan

Kozhikode (Kerala), April 1 : Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday slammed Rahul Gandhi and the Congress a day after the INDIA bloc protest rally in Delhi where the latter shared the stage with CPI(M)s General Secretary Sitaram Yechury.

Taking potshots at the grand old party, CM Vijayan pointed out that it was due to a complaint raised first by the Congress against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal that he is in jail now.

CM Vijayan was addressing the media ahead of his election campaign in and around Kozhikode.

He attacked Rahul Gandhi, who is seeking re-election from the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency and is contesting against INDIA bloc partner CPIs candidate.

“We all know that Rahul, though not the president of the party, is the tallest leader in the Congress party.Just see, who is he contesting against in his constituency -- Wayanad, it is the CPIs Annie Raja, the candidate there.

It defies logic and rationale as Congress and CPI are part of the INDIA bloc and instead of taking on the BJP he is taking on CPI candidate,” said CM Vijayan,

“What’s he up to? We all know what happened in Manipur and we also know Annie Raja was put under duress when she spoke against the incidents in Manipur.Did Rahul say anything?” asked the CM.

Incidentally in Wayanad, the BJP came out with a surprise candidate by fielding its state president K.Surendran.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-BDJS fought together and Tushar Vellapally was the candidate who finished a poor third.

He ended up with just around 78,000 votes which accounted for a mere 7.25 per cent, while Rahul Gandhi won with a staggering margin of over 4.31 lakh votes -- the highest margin in the 2019 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala.

sg/dpb