Opposition MLAs stage a protest near the Speaker’s office in the Assembly complex in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The ruling front and the Opposition scrambled to bend the political narrative about the chaotic incidents in the Assembly on Wednesday to their respective advantage by airing diametrically different points of view of the developments.
For one, the stand-off led to a verbal duel between Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan and Public Works Minister Mohammed Riyas.
Mr. Riyas angered Mr. Satheesan by stating that the Opposition leader “lacked spine and was Sangh Parivar’s stooge”.
Later at a press conference, Mr. Satheesan countered that Mr. Riyas owed his ministerial berth to his father-in-law and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
“Mr. Riyas got a management quota berth in the Cabinet. Now, he is attempting to turn the Opposition against Speaker A.N. Shamseer, given their intra-party rivalry. Mr. Riyas’s attempt to upstage the Speaker through public relations stunts has fallen flat. So he is employing a different set of tactics to vilify the Speaker by setting the Chair against the Opposition,” Mr. Satheesan said.
KPCC president K. Sudhakaran slammed CPI(M) MLAs for attempting to strong-arm the Opposition into submission.
Mr. Sudhakaran called for Statewide protests against CPI(M) violence against Opposition MLAs in the House.
He recalled that the CPI(M) had roughed up former Communist Marxist Party (CMP) leader and party dissident M.V. Raghavan in the Assembly. Party members attacked UDF legislators, destroyed Assembly property and unleashed anarchy on the House floor to deter late Kerala Congress(M) leader K. M. Mani from presenting the Budget as Finance Minister in the Oommen Chandy government.
Mr. Sudhakaran also recounted the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader T. P. Chandrasekharan at the hands of assassins “despatched by the CPI(M)’s State leadership”.
Both leaders said the government had much to hide, and Mr. Shamseer provided a perfect foil for the LDF by denying the Opposition’s Rule 50 notices. The CPI(M) had chided him for not sufficiently shielding Mr. Vijayan from discomfiting UDF charges and now walked the extra mile to carry out the party’s diktat.
LDF convener E.P. Jayarajan said Congress MLAs had unleashed violence in the House to distract public attention from the escalating infighting in the party. He accused Congress MLAs of attempting to provoke a “bloodbath” in the Assembly by attacking ruling front members and Watch and Ward officials. Both fronts seemed poised for another round of wrangling about the Assembly incident.
