Kerala - Alappuzha   

A cheap political game: Pinarayi

ALAPPUZHA: Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has said the deployment of Central forces in Kannur for the November 7 Assembly byelection is a cheap political game of the Congress with ulterior motives.

Inaugurating an election meeting of Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate G. Krishnaprasad here on Tuesday, Mr. Vijayan said there was no particular law and order situation in Kannur that warranted the deployment of Central forces. Elections in Kannur used to be a peaceful affair.

The LDF always stood for fair polls despite the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) employing various tactics to provoke it.

Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony and Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Mullappally Ramachandran should think whether it was befitting their position to back such cheap political games, Mr. Vijayan said alleging that the UDF was trying to portray the law and order situation in Kannur and Kerala as fragile.

On the Free Trade Agreement between India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the CPI(M) leader asked why Mr. Antony was keeping silent on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh breaking his promise to Kerala that the State’s concerns over the deal would be addressed before the deal was signed.

If the negative list, as claimed by the Congress, existed, was it approved by the other ASEAN countries, he asked. Mr. Antony should clarify these issues before accusing the LDF of misleading the public or of politicising the deal.

The LDF or its Ministers had never misled the public on the ASEAN deal. That the ASEAN deal had been pushed by the Congress without discussing the deal in Parliament or even in the Union Cabinet was evident from the protest lodged by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, he said.

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