Both the Congress and the CPI(M) have, for years, painted each other as being in cahoots with the BJP in Kerala.
On Friday, Kerala BJP unit chief K. Surendran, arguably, fanned the flames of this long-running blame game by repeating a controversial assertion he has made in the past.
"The National Democratic Alliance (led by the BJP) will form the government in Kerala if it gets 35 seats," K. Surendran said. Any party or formation needs at least 71 of the 140 Assembly seats to stake claim to form the government in Kerala.
Onmanorama reported, "Surendran asserted that the political combine, NDA, led by his party, can cobble up a majority even if it has only half of the seats required to cross the half-way mark in the
legislature. Obviously, he had in mind the prospect of garnering support from a few parties or legislators."
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is leading the CPI(M)'s bid to regain power, latched on to the statement. Addressing a public meeting in his constituency of Dharmadam on Friday, Pinarayi targeted the Congress over Surendran's utterance.
“A BJP leader is announcing that his party need only 35 seats to come to power, whereas the requirement is 71 seats. That is the kind of faith they have in the Congress. The BJP is being driven by the belief that there is a fixed deposit in the Congress here [in Kerala]. It is no surprise that Congress men who won the election have now joined the BJP,” Pinarayi was quoted as saying by The Hindu.
"Should these fixed deposits be sent to the Assembly? People in Kerala who support the UDF [led by the Congress] themselves are thinking on this. They also think that they shouldn’t be cheated,” Pinarayi was quoted as saying by The Times of India.
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Pinarayi Vijayan also referred to a recent statement of Rahul Gandhi in which he claimed that the Congress needed to win a good majority in elections to ensure its governments would not fall due to poaching of legislators.
Pinarayi lashed out at the Congress for supporting the probes against his government by Central agencies even though Rahul Gandhi had voiced his opposition to them.
