CPM hand in glove with Congress in Kerala: BJP

The ruling CPI-M led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala are hand in glove to keep the BJP-led NDA at bay, said a senior BJP leader here on Tuesday.

Speaking to the media, State BJP president P. S. Sreedharan Pillai said that this secret pact between Kerala's traditional rivals to keep the BJP out has been proved beyond doubt.

"Just have a look at the CPI-M's detailed analysis on the recent Lok sabha polls and they won in just one seat, with the Congress winning in 19. In their analysis, not a word has been said about the Congress, instead they were very worried of the BJP-led NDA increasing its vote share to 15.56 per cent and expressed the need of containing the growth of BJP here," said Pillai.

Elaborating on the allegation of a secret pact between the traditional rivals, Pillai said in the upcoming five assembly by-elections if one looks into the voting share in three of the five constituencies, the BJP share of votes at every election since 2001 is going up, while the vote share of the CPI-M is going down.

"It's here that the Congress vote share has gone up and this clearly indicates the secret pact between the two," added Pillai.

Replying to a question about Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala's statement that the secret pact is between the BJP and the CPI-M in Kerala and the best example of this could be seen in the way the SNC Lavalin case, which is presently before the Supreme Court and involves the future of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, has been adjourned a record 15 times in the past 2 years, Pillai said he felt sorry for Chennithala..

"I feel sorry for Chennithala, who has been a former Home Minister and what he is saying about adjourning this case is rubbish and one which does not even require a reply. By this he is alleging that the BJP is putting pressure to adjourn the case and he says so as he has no clue about the pendency of cases, especially high profile ones. I wish to tell him to find out how many times the National Herald case in which Sonia Gandhi is involved has been adjourned," said Pillai.

In the upcoming five assembly by-elections, the BJP in the 2016 assembly elections had finished in the second place at Vattiyoorkavu and Manjeswaram, pushing the CPI-M in both these constituencies to third place. This time at Konni, the BJP is putting up a big fight, even though they came third in 2016.

However, at Aroor, which is a sitting seat of the CPI-M and at Kochi, the BJP is a distant third and is not even considering putting up fight.

Of the five, four seats are with the UDF.

( With inputs from IANS )