Thrissur Corporation Opposition leader seeks Saji Cherian’s apology over his remark on smoking

Opposition Leader demands apology from Minister for Culture in Thrissur Corporation council meeting, LDF councillors boycott.

Opposition Leader of the Thrissur Corporation Rajan J. Pallan on Saturday raised a motion in the council demanding that Minister for Culture Saji Cherian apologise to the people of Kerala, especially to the youth and students, for his remark that “smoking should not be viewed seriously”. However, the Mayor did not approve the motion.

Mr. Pallan called on the Thrissur Corporation to give an appropriate response through the motion to the Minister’s statements since Thrissur is the cultural capital of Kerala. He criticised that those who should be sending a positive message to the youth are instead distorting our culture just for the support of an MLA, he alleged.

This was the first council meeting of 2025. However, 18 Left Democratic Front (LDF) councillors boycotted the meeting. All standing committee chairpersons from the LDF, except Varghese Kandamkulathi, boycotted the meeting. Nevertheless, 28 Opposition councillors, including 22 from Congress and 6 from BJP, were present throughout the session.

Mr. Pallan slammed the LDF’s infighting, lack of cooperation, decreased responsibility, disorganisation, and collapse, as evidenced by the mass boycott of their councillors. He said this was a blow to the LDF administration.

However, LDF sources said that they didn’t attend the meeting as there were no important agendas in today’s council meeting.