Benoy Viswam questions political wisdom of Congress in Kerala

Kochi CPI leader criticizes Congress in Kerala, questions party's political wisdom and alliances, advocates for INDIA bloc.

CPI State Secretary Binoy Viswam has slammed the Congress party in Kerala for its alleged lack of political farsightedness while batting for INDIA (the Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance) bloc at the national level.

He was talking at Vote ‘n’ Talk, an election-related meet-the-press programme of the Ernakulam Press Club in Kochi on March 26. Mr. Viswam reiterated that the political wisdom of the Congress party is at stake in Kerala in fielding Rahul Gandhi from the Wayanad constituency.

“While the Congress party has the right to field any candidate anywhere in the country just as Mr. Gandhi has the right to contest from any constituency, the party needs to answer two fundamental questions of political propriety. Is the Hindi heartland sending over 200 members to the Parliament or Kerala with just 20 members the political focus of the electoral battle and who is Congress’ principal rival in this fight, the fascist RSS-backed BJP or the Left,” he said.

He said that the Congress and the BJP in Kerala were one and the same in their blind anti-Left stance. He drew attention to the Paivalike Grama Panchayat in Kasargod where a Congress member voted in favour of the no-confidence motion moved by the BJP against CPI (M)’s panchayat president while the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML’s) voted for the LDF. Mr. Viswam dubbed IUML’s determination not to follow the Congress in supporting the BJP a political sign.

While welcoming the Congress’ decision to drop its candidate from the Jaipur City Lok Sabha seat Sunil Sharma following the political uproar over his association with Jaipur Dialogues, a right-wing forum that is known to target the Congress leadership, Mr. Viswam challenged the party to similarly drop its candidate from Thiruvananthapuram constituency Shashi Tharoor, one of the vocal critics of Mr. Sharma, for his alleged deviations from the Congress positions in two important issues.

Mr. Tharoor, he alleged, had in the past stated that the Muslim community could have considered shifting Babri Masjid to another location and had also recently equated Zionist Israel with Hamas, which for all its shortcomings was running an elected government in the Gaza strip. If Mr. Tharoor could not be withdrawn from the fray, will the Congress care to explain why. Is there different yardsticks for different leaders in Congress.

Mr. Viswam said that while the Left can guarantee that its every single elected member will support the INDIA bloc in Delhi, the Congress can hardly give such a guarantee. In the event of a hung house with the National Democratic Alliance as the single largest coalition, how many Congress members will be able to stave off the lure of bribery and the intimidation of Central agencies that will come knocking at their doors.