Pinarayi Vijayan steps up attack against Rahul by recollecting 'Pappu' jibe

Thiruvananthapuram: In what could turn out to be an embarrassment to the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, Kerala chief minister and CPM senior leader Pinarayi Vijayan has stepped up his attack against Congress top leader Rahul Gandhi by indirectly referring to the  'Pappu' jibe.

Rahul's continuous attack against Vijayan by referring to the probe by central agencies, especially the probe against Vijayan's daughter, seems to have provoked the latter.

"Rahul, you earlier had a name. Don't make us feel that there is no change in you. It will not be good. We won't be scared by hearing about jail. Your grandmother (former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) had put us in jails. But we were not scared," Vijayan said while addressing an election campaign meeting in Kozhikode on Friday.

Congress leaders in Kerala strongly reacted to it with opposition leader V D Satheesan accusing that Vijayan became Modi's mouthpiece in Kerala. Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala asked Vijayan to withdraw his remarks against Rahul and tender an apology.

Rahul had been frequently accusing Vijayan of not attacking the BJP but attacking the Congress and him personally during the election campaigns in Kerala. He had also alleged that it was due to the CPM - BJP nexus that the central agencies were not taking any action against Vijayan even as chief ministers of many non-BJP ruling states were facing actions.

Vijayan had been strongly criticising Rahul's decision to contest from Kerala citing that it would weaken the joint fight of opposition parties against the BJP at the national level. 

Rahul's candidacy in Wayanad could help the Congress-led UDF in other constituencies in Kerala too and that could affect the prospects of left-front candidates. Any setback for the CPM-led LDF in the election would trigger criticism against the state government for anti-incumbency and it would obviously put Vijayan on the defensive. These could be the reasons why Vijayan is too critical against Rahul at the election campaigns, sources point out.