Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala on Friday said the Left Democratic Front (LDF) had forfeited its moral right to continue in office by losing dismally in 123 Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha election.
He said the United Democratic Front (UDF) had won in constituencies of 16 Ministers, Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan, and his deputy. The vote share of the UDF increased by 12 percentage points while that of the LDF slumped.
Mr. Chennithala, who appeared buoyant after the landslide victory of the Congress in the Lok Sabha election in the State, said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had authored the LDF’s ruin. Mr. Vijayan vilified political opponents in offensive language, he said referring to the Chief Minister’s spat with K. Premachandran, MP of Kollam, following his defection to the UDF in 2014.
Mr. Vijayan sought to supplant the Congress with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the main Opposition in the State.
He perilously spawned a politics of grievance in Kerala by insensitively handling the Sabarimala issue. The BJP made capital out of the dangerous turn of events.
However, the electorate acted sensibly. The people rejected the hardline politics of the BJP and the CPI(M) and threw in their lot with the Congress.
The UDF had in 2014 filed an affidavit seeking to protect the ancient practices at Sabarimala, including the ban on the entry of women of reproductive age given the single status of the presiding deity.
However, Mr. Vijayan dismantled the affidavit and filed another one in its stead leading to the Supreme Court order that took Kerala to the brink of chaos.
He said across Kerala, LDF workers disenchanted with Mr. Vijayan’s handling of the temple issue voted overwhelmingly for the BJP.
Mr. Chennithala said “now was the right time for Mr Vijayan to call on the Governor to submit his resignation”. The UDF would meet on May 27 to discuss the poll results.
