Left, UDF continue war over Madani, Sufiya

The ripples created by the revelations on the alleged role of Sufiya, wife of PDP chairman Abdul Nasser Madani, in the terror act of Kalamassery bus-burning in Kerala’s politics are yet to subside as the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF and Congress-headed Opposition UDF continuing to charge each other with promoting and protecting Madani.

PP Thankachan, Congress leader and UDF convener, said in Kochi on Tuesday that CPI(M) had known of the extremist background of the PDP from long back. He said that the State police were unable to find the spread of extremism because the failure of the LDF Government. The Congress was viewing the PDP, NDF and other such organizations on the same level and that they had long lost their relevance.

In New Delhi, Opposition leader Oommen Chandy said on Tuesday that Congress did not require anybody’s certificate to prove its secular credentials. “The Congress has always upheld the principles of secularism,” he said in response to newsmen’s questions on the allegations against State Congress president Ramesh Chennithala that he was behaving like a right-wing communalist.

Regarding Madani’s description of Chennithala as a “Hindu extremist”, Chandy said that the State Congress chief need not give any explanation on that. “The people of Keralite can understand the truth of this. They will reject such allegations. These allegations are nothing but a strategy to divert attention,” Chandy said but refused to speak about the allegation against Chennithala.

The Yuva Janata Dal on Tuesday asked the people of Kerala to identify the move by Madani and his PDP to divert public attention away from him by terming those who opposed extremism as communalists. The organization also asked the CPI(M) to tender an apology to the people for trying to give sanctity to religious extremism and communalism in the society.

Saleem Madavur, State secretary, Yuva Janata Dal, said in Kozhikode that Kerala would never forget the role played by Madani and his ISS in propagating religious extremism and communalism when they were unknown to the Muslims of the State. He also alleged that it was the CPI(M) and its secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, who had brought back the youth to Madani who had left him when he was in prison.

He said that Madani was categorizing those who opposed him as communalists in order to inject the poison of religious extremism into more youths and that the media under the CPI(M) were giving undue importance to such descriptions. The CPI(M)-controlled media were trying to create a sympathy wave projecting the tears of Madani and his wife Sufiya, he added.

At the same time, the CPI(M) saw all such criticisms as efforts to destroy the Left in the State. Speaking at a programme in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday, party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said that a large section of the mainstream media in Kerala was destroying own credibility due to the hatred for the Left which had set in their minds. In order to satisfy their urge to criticize the Left, such newspapers and television channels were creating their own reports or were distorting the reports everyday, he said.

Meanwhile, rights activist Justice (Retd) VR Krishna Iyer, who had supported the move to get Madani released from the prison in Coimbatore, said in Kochi that he did not want to air any opinion whether the PDP chairman was an extremist or not. “I have no relations with Madani or his PDP,” he said. He said he had intervened on behalf of Madani when there was rights violation against him in the prison.

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