BJP team meets Pranab to discuss post-poll violence

Union minister Nitin Gadkari told reporters after meeting the President that BJP and RSS workers were facing atrocities from CPI(M), which led the alliance that won the Assembly polls in the state. He alleged that police was not taking appropriate action. 

“We have given the President details of these cases, including photographs. Our worker Pramod was killed. Houses of more than 100 workers have been vandalised. Situation is not good. He has assured us that he will take appropriate action. Besides Gadkari, the delegation included Union ministers J P Nadda, Nirmala Sitharaman and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, MPs Meenakshi Lekhi and M J Akbar and Kerala BJP President Kummanam Rajasekharan.

CPM Hitting back, CPI(M) on Sunday blamed BJP and RSS for the violence in Kerala, alleging that their workers had attacked the victory processions of Left leaders as the saffron outfits were not willing to accept the people’s verdict. “The CPI(M) very strongly condemns the attacks and vandalism the BJP has organised. 

It is the BJP and RSS workers who started this bout of violence by attacking a victory procession,” party leader Sitaram Yechury alleged. The Left party claimed that allegations against its workers were ‘false’ and BJP leadership was adopting a ‘hypocritical and dishonest position’ about what has happened in Kerala. Its reaction came on a day when BJP workers staged a demonstration outside the CPI(M) headquarters here over the alleged attacks on party workers in Kerala.

Former Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala on Sunday warned the CPI(M) and BJP of ‘dire consequences’ if both parties do not stop the ‘violence’ unleashed against Congress workers after the Assembly polls. As many as 142 small and big incidents of political violence had been reported in the last three days soon after the results were announced, he said.