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“He is spitting out not just any poison, but deadly poison,” Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan said on Monday, October 30. The CM’s scathing remarks were about Minister of State for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar statements. The minister’s remarks on the backdrop of the blasts at Kochi’s Kalamassery has angered the Chief Minister. This is the second consecutive day that the Kerala CM is lashing out at Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
Hours after the explosion on Sunday, Rajeev took a swipe at the Kerala CM and the ruling CPI(M) for the solidarity they have been showing towards Palestine in the ongoing Israel-Hamas issue. “Dirty, shameless, appeasement politics by a discredited CM (and HM) @pinarayivijayan besieged by corruption charges Sitting in Delhi and protesting against Israel when in Kerala open calls by Terrorist Hamas for Jihad is causing attacks and bomb blasts on innocent Christians,” he said.
The Kerala CM’s contention is that the Minister tried to link the blasts at the Jehovah’s Witnesses meet to the CPI(M) support for Palestine. There were many BJP leaders and right wing handles that had speculated that the attack in Kalamassery would have been a response to Israel-Palestine conflict, hinting that Palestine supporters would have carried out the attacks. However, by evening a man named Dominic Martin, who claimed to be an ex-Jehovah Witness confessed that he had executed the blasts.
Later that same day, Pinarayi Vijayan called for a press meet with the sole agenda of responding to the above remark made by Rajeev. Without taking Rajeev’s name, Pinarayi read his post in the press meeting and said that such a remark by a Minister, even as the investigation of the case is still going on, is born out of an agenda to target a particular community. “The state government is of the stand that the culprit, whoever it is, should not and will not get away. But on what basis can a Minister target a particular community without any basis? This is part of their communal agenda,” said Pinarayi, who went on to add that strict action will be taken against those using the incident to spread communal hatred.
Retorting to this, Rajeev addressed the media on October 30 and accused Pinarayi of playing “appeasement politics”. He said that Pinarayi Vijayan had called him a supporter of the radicals after the blasts took place. “Hours after the blast at Kochi, Vijayan called me one of the people supporting the radicals. But the fact of the matter is, it’s Vijayan who does that and plays appeasement politics,” he said.
“We all know who allowed a Hamas leader to speak here and when we pointed it out, Vijayan called me a supporter of radicals. To call me that, means he is a liar and he is lying to cover up his ineptness and incompetence as he often plays appeasement politics. From 2016 onwards we have heard of people from Kerala joining Islamic State and going to Afghanistan and other such countries and when we point that out, we are called radicals and Vijayan becomes a hero. In June when a person was arrested for a blast in a train, the Kerala Police first said it was done by a mentally unstable person, but they changed their stance when the ATS of Maharashtra Police arrested him,” added Chandrasekhar.
“We all know who allowed a Hamas leader to speak in Kerala and when we pointed it out, (Pinarayi) Vijayan accused me of being communal. He is lying to cover up his ineptness and incompetence as he often plays appeasement politics,” said Rajeev.
A few hours after this, Pinarayi addressed the media and said that Rajeev was a lethal venom, a person who was not maintaining the standards of a Union Minister, especially at a time when a tragic incident had occurred. He also pointed out that for decades India has supported Palestine’s cause and it is now that we have moved away from the stand. “He is a motormouth. If I call him communal, he will be proud, he will think of it as a decoration, the CM said.
“He and his associates are targeting a particular community. But that is not surprising, since they have a communal mentality,” said Pinarayi. “There is one thing Rajeev should remember here. He is a minister. He should believe in the investigation agencies. Police are conducting a probe here and there are central agencies who have reached here to support. The Union home minister himself called and spoke with me and I updated him on the investigation and said I will ask if we need help. This is what we do when such an incident happens.