- VD Satheeshan alleges BJP and Kerala CPM government have a nexus shielding Vijayan from probes
- He said CBI appeal in SNC-Lavalin case against Pinarayi Vijayan delayed repeatedly
- VD Satheesan said that if there is no IUML, extreme outfits will take its space
Alleging a nexus between the BJP-ruled Centre and the CPM-led Kerala government, the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, VD Satheeshan, said Chief Ministers in all non-BJP-ruled states were facing heat from central agencies, but not Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan.
"There was an SNC-Lavalin case against the Chief Minister. The appeal filed by the CBI has been pending for seven or eight years in the Supreme Court. Forty-one times it was postponed. Whenever the case comes up, the CBI counsel is not appearing," Satheesan told NDTV's Executive Editor TM Veeraraghav at the Keralam Power Play.
"You look at the other non-BJP states. The central agencies are behind the leaders in Delhi, Karnataka, Telangana, Mamata Banerjee in Bengal, but in Kerala, nothing happened," he said.
When the Congress leader was asked who the captain of Team UDF was, he replied, "Congress politics is different from cricket; there is a captain in cricket, but in Congress, when we face an election, we don't announce a Chief Minister candidate. Only after the election, we select a CM candidate." Asked if not naming a face to take on the formidable figure of Pinarayi Vijayan can be a disadvantage, he said that "collective leadership is good" and that the Congress has a "galaxy of leadership" in Kerala.
Amid reports that multiple Congress MPs are seeking tickets for the upcoming state polls, Satheesan said the high command will soon decide on this front. "I don't have any objection if some national leader is contesting. If the party allows, they will contest."
As the Left tries to return to power for the third time in a row, the Congress is confident it can turn the tables this time. Asked what is different this time as compared to the 2021 election, he replied, "When I was taking over this position in 2021, the UDF position was very vulnerable because all the leaders, and the rank and file were demoralised because of the back-to-back defeat. We slowly started giving morale to the workers and coalition partners. And we started to win the elections," he said, citing the UDF victories in bypolls and local body elections.
"In the 2024 parliamentary election, we won 18 out of 20 seats. But I said that when we won the 2019 election, we were overconfident about the 2021 election. I told all the leaders, 'you remove from your mind that we won with a wonderful margin'," he said.
The Congress, which rubs shoulders with the Left in Delhi, is its arch-rival in Kerala. In what appeared to give away this tricky equation, Satheeshan said they would campaign on the issue of LPG shortage owing to the war in the Middle East. When asked how that is relevant in Kerala, considering the Congress is challenging the Left, he replied that it is a key problem, like the issue of remittances.
Satheesan also responded to the political attacks from the BJP and the Left over the Congress's alliance with the Indian Union Muslim League. He said that the party was allied to the CPM earlier. "When they were with the CPM, they were secular. When they are with UDF, the CPM is saying that they are communal," he said.
"My question is, if there is no IUML in Kerala, who will take over that space? The extreme outfits will take that space because the IUML is fighting them. All these extreme outfits in the majority community and the minority community are indirectly helping each other," Satheeshan said.
