BJP violence to divert attention from medical scam: Kerela CM

The government is ready to hand the case over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, he said, a day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley visited the state and criticised the spate of recent political killings.

Jaitley had met the family of a murdered Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker on Sunday and said that the violence will not suppress the RSS ideology or scare workers. “There were 70 to 80 wounds on his [RSS worker Rajesh Edavakode] body. Even the enemies of India are not this barbaric,” Jaitley had said.

Earlier, on August 4, the National Human Rights Commission had sent notices to the Kerala government and the director general of police about the political violence in the state and had given them four weeks to curb it.

Vijayan added that the BJP’s internal probe report will also be considered by the vigilance investigation team, though he alleged that the BJP was trying to divert attention from its medical college scam. On July 19, reports had said that an internal investigation conducted by the BJP’s Kerala unit found that its leaders took Rs 5.6 crore in bribes to get private institutes in the state approvals from the Medical Council of India.

There have been several political murders in Kerala since the Left Democratic Front government came to power in May 2016, with victims coming from both the BJP-RSS alliance and the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist). The RSS and the CPI(M) have blamed each other for the bloodshed.