Congress in Kerala to launch offensive against BJP

A two-day meeting of the Congress in Kerala, to analyse the set-back in the recent civic polls, on Thursday decided to unleash an all-out attack against the BJP's "communal and fascist" tendencies, and the CPI-M's "politics of violence".

"We have decided to expose the BJP's communal agenda of engaging in fascist ways and also the politics of violence followed by the CPI-M in the state. For that, I am going to lead a state-wide yatra that will begin on January 4 from the northern district of the state and will end on February 9 here," state Congress president V.M. Sudheeran told reporters here on Thursday night after the meeting ended.

Political experts feel that the Congress went soft on the tie-up between the BJP and the Hindu Ezhava social group of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) led by Vellapally Natesan.

The Congress felt that it would be the biggest beneficiary of this tie-up, as there would be a backlash from the Hindu Ezhava community which was not happy with the link-up.

But it was the Left opposition, led by its star campaigner V.S. Achuthanandan, who went hammer and tongs against Natesan and predicted that followers of Sree Narayana Guru will reject this new alliance. The Left came out victorious in the civic polls.

"We might not have performed as per our expectations, but one thing we could identify was that the party continues to have a solid base and now we are going to rejuvenate it at all levels to get ready for the assembly polls next year," said Sudheeran.