CPI(M) remarks of blocking fake voters aimed at scaring real electors: Cong

The Congress and BJP on Tuesday contended that the ruling CPI(M)'s reported remarks about stopping fake voters from entering polling stations during the voting for the Palakkad assembly seat were aimed at deterring electors and would amount to taking the law into its own hands.

The bypoll will be held on November 20.

During the silent campaign in the Palakkad assembly constituency, Congress-led UDF candidate Rahul Mamkootathil, while visiting homes seeking votes, said the election officials were officers of the government and therefore, how did fake voters' names get registered on the electoral roll?  Mamkootathil, the state president of the Youth Congress, said that even the UDF was opposed to fake voters, but that issue should not be used to intimidate other electors from voting.

BJP's C Krishnakumar, who also visited homes in the constituency seeking votes, contended that such statements by CPI(M) shows the Left party's tendency to take law into its own hands.

He said that his party would take recourse to legal means to prevent fake voting as they were not in favour of physically blocking people from entering polling booths.

"There is police for that. Does CPI(M) have no faith in its government's Home Department or the district administration?" he asked.

Meanwhile, LDF's candidate, P Sarin said that if the UDF and BJP were hoping to win the bypoll through fake votes, the Left would prevent it through legal and democratic means.

Sarin, amidst his door-to-door campaign in the constituency, said that the Left was not concerned by fake votes and urged the UDF and BJP not to bank on such tactics for a win.

Mamkootathil also said that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's recent remarks about IUML supremo Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal would play a role in the Palakkad bypoll.

The UDF candidate claimed that the CM's remarks had communal undertones and indicated Vijayan's Sangh Parivar mindset.

While addressing a bypoll campaign meeting for LDF candidate P Sarin in Palakkad on Sunday, Vijayan criticised Thangal, who is the spiritual leader of a significant section of Sunni Muslims in Kerala, saying he was acting like a worker of Jamaat-e-Islami.

The bypoll was necessitated after the Congress MLA of the constituency, Shafi Parambil, got elected to the Lok Sabha from the Vadakara constituency.