Starkly different accounts of the outcome of a campus brawl between Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran in Brennan College in 1967 provoked a fresh round of sniping between the ruling front and Opposition on Sunday.
The economic devastation and public health crisis precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic appeared to take a back-seat, as the Congress and CPI(M) politicians took potshots at each other on live television. The rhetoric on both sides seemed accusatory, combative and often bordered on the personal.
In his official FB page, Mr. Sudhakaran said his foray against Mr. Vijayan was personal. “I have learned to subdue political criminals personally,” he said. Mr. Sudhakaran said he was answering to criticism that he had targetted Mr. Vijayan personally.
He also attempted to link Mr. Vijayan to the communal riots in Thalassery in 1971 and the political killing of RMP leader T.P. Chandrasekharan in 2012.
He said senior CPI(M) leaders such as V.S. Achuthanandan, K.K. Shylaja and M.A. Baby were victims of Mr. Vijayan’s authoritarianism.
The CPI(M) has pulled Mr. Vijayan out of the fray. It did not want to promote Mr. Sudhakaran as Mr. Vijayan’s political equal and formidable adversary in the Congress. So the party has delegated the task of fending off Mr. Sudhakaran to other leaders.
Former Minister A.K. Balan accused Mr. Sudhakaran of laying the ground for political violence. The CPI(M) had laid the matter to rest. However, Mr. Sudhakaran had reverted to his old ways. His words echoed that of the BJP, which had threatened to jail Mr. Vijayan's children and attack him at home.
CPI(M) leader P. Jayarajan said Mr. Sudhakaran would only threaten and bluster. He lacked the courage to act. Another CPI(M) leader M.M. Mani said Mr. Sudhakaran had attempted to revive the moribund Congress by picking on Mr. Vijayan.
Mr. Sudhakaran had opened a Pandora's box of political slighting last week by claiming that he had trounced Mr. Vijayan in the campus fight. The Chief Minister countered by suggesting he was the victor. He accused Mr. Sudhakaran of plotting to kidnap his children in the 1990s, conspiring to assassinate CPI(M) leaders and profiting hugely from crime.
