Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan is a chameleon: LoP Satheesan

Kochi: With the Congress party in Kerala on a high after winning two by-elections, Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan on Monday sharply criticized Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, likening him to a "chameleon" for allegedly shifting his political stance based on electoral needs.

“During the April Lok Sabha elections, Vijayan played the card of minority communalism, and in the recent by-elections, he shifted to majority communalism. This opportunistic behavior is solely aimed at garnering votes. He is like the proverbial chameleon, and at the drop of a hat he changes his stance and did just that to garner votes,” Satheesan alleged.

He further alleged, "During the April Lok Sabha elections in certain districts he focused on the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) to appeal to the minority community. However, after failing to evoke any response, this time during the three by-elections, his rhetoric was tailored to appease the majority community and that also has failed,” added Satheesan.

The Congress is riding high on its recent by-election victories. While Priyanka Gandhi won the Wayanad Lok Sabha by-election by an impressive margin of over four lakh votes, in the Palakkad assembly constituency, state Youth Congress president Rahul Mamkootathil secured a victory margin of over 18,000 votes, up from the less than 4,000 margin which the Congress candidate had won in the 2021 assembly polls.

Meanwhile, CPI-M's traditional stronghold in Chelakkara, a seat the party has been winning non-stop since 1996, saw the margin come down from over 39,000 votes in 2021 to less than 13,000 votes this time.

“Who is writing Vijayan’s speech? What he is saying is devoid of facts. In Wayanad, it is now clear that the Left candidate (CPI veteran Sathyan Mokheri) got 70,000 votes less than the April 2024 Lok Sabha polls. What is to be noted is in Wayanad on several booths (171), the Left candidate came third. In Palakkad, Vijayan says their candidate did well, but the real picture is their candidate got less than 1,000 votes than the 2021 polls. It’s the BJP which lost more than 10,000 votes and it’s because of that the gap between the BJP and the CPI-M supported candidate came down,” added Satheesan.

“Now Vijayan says the Congress candidate got the votes from SDPI and Jamaat-e-Islami, whom is he trying to fool, as I have with me his speeches where he glorifies these organisations in the past and articles that he has written,” Satheesan further said.