Conspiracy behind Mahija's protest: CPI-M

CPI-M state Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has said that there was a conspiracy behind the protest by Jishnu Prannoy's mother that took place earlier this month in front of the office of the Kerala police chief.

Balakrishnan said in an article on Friday that the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party were hand-in-glove and termed it as a 'grand master design' to change the course of the protest by Jishnu's mother, Mahija, against the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left government in the state.

"There was an organised action to change the course of the protest by Mahija against the government and Vijayan who took lot of personal interest in resolving it. There was nothing wrong in the police action of arresting people who had no role in the protest of Mahija," wrote Balakrishnan.

On April 9, Mahija and her relatives ended their five-day fast at the Medical College hospital after they received a written assurance to their demands from the state government, which included the arrest of the remaining accused responsible for the death of her son and action against the police officials who roughed them up in front of the state police chief's office.

Since her son, an engineering student, was found hanging in January, the mother has been demanding justice for her son who, according to her, was 'killed' by the college authorities.

Reacting to Balakrishnan's article, Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala dismissed it as a standard norm of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) to blame all and sundry for their failures.

"We had no role in the protest and the CPI-M always blames others for its own failures. The stock word that the CPI-M uses to divert attention is by banking on the theory that there was a conspiracy. Now everyone knows this and none takes it seriously," said Chennithala.

Meanwhile, Mahija who was supposed to meet Vijayan on Saturday has decided not to come from Kozhikode to meet him because she and her family are pained after the Chief Minister said: "We do not know what they gained by this strike as we, the government, did everything possible for them. It's for them to say what else more they wanted."

The CPI -- the second biggest ally in the Vijayan government -- on Thursday went hammer and tongs against the manner governance was being carried out after its state Secretary Kanam Rajendran warned against "unwarranted and needless" police excesses.

--IANS

sg/sm/dg