A lowly black shoe allegedly hurled by a Kerala Students Union (KSU) activist at the bus ferrying Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his Cabinet colleagues to the venue of the government’s public outreach programme, Navakerala Sadas, in Ernakulam on Sunday arguably marked a new low in the fast fraying ruling front and Opposition relationship in the State.
The high-profile act also spotlighted how fraught politics over Navakerala Sadas has worryingly spilt onto the street, resulting in public brawls between the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Congress workers.
Cyclical violence between CPI(M) and Congress workers seems to suddenly characterise the Cabinet’s progress through the State.
The roadside incidents have resulted in injuries to scores of persons, including an Opposition legislator, Congress workers and police officers.
The footage of police officers and CPI(M) activists grappling with protestors along the Navakerala Sadas route has ricocheted around mainstream and social media platforms.
They have fuelled fiery criticism of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan by the Opposition and spawned outraged monologues by presenters chairing television commentaries that the CPI(M) perceived as calibrated to drown Navkerala Sadas’s political messaging.
CPI(M) push back
The CPI(M) has pushed back with the party’s State Secretariat, accusing Leader of Opposition V. D. Satheesan and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President K. Sudhakaran of unleashing “suicidally violent protests” against the Cabinet’s mass contact programme to rob it of its sheen by creating political martyrs.
Congress seemed to acknowledge the KSU worker had not expressed the “widespread resentment” at CM’s “brazen incitement of violence” against Opposition activists in a “democratic manner”.
The KSU State Secretary Aloshious Xavier and Mr. Satheesan said they did not endorse the hurling of shoes as an act of protest.
Nevertheless, the leaders averred that the one-off incident did not absolve Mr. Vijayan of the guilt of abetting “CPI(M) criminals”.
Moral victory
Congress also perceived a moral victory in a magistrate court rebuffing the police attempt to book the KSU worker accused of throwing a shoe at Mr. Vijayan’s motorcade on the charge of attempted murder.
An uneasy season of fraught politics appeared ahead, with the Congress determined to escalate anti-government protests across Kerala as the Cabinet’s outreach meanders through the State’s hinterlands.
