Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has accused the Congress of eschewing all party flags at Rahul Gandhi’s road show in Wayanad on Wednesday as a pretext to hide ally Indian Union Muslim League’s green-and-crescent colours.
He suggested the Congress was afraid of the BJP and wanted to avoid a repeat of the 2019 situation when the IUML’s green flag was portrayed by the Right wing as that of Pakistan’s.
Then BJP national president Amit Shah had said that “when a procession is taken out there (Wayanad), it is difficult to make out whether it is an Indian or a Pakistani procession”. Despite all the controversy, Rahul won by 4 lakh-plus votes.
On Wednesday, neither the Congress nor the IUML carried their party flags at the road show which, instead, featured thousands of tricolour balloons and placards with Rahul’s pictures.
Another reason the Congress-led United Democratic Front may have played it safe was the offer of support from the Social Democratic Party of India, political arm of the banned Popular Front of India. After careful consideration, the UDF on Thursday rejected the offer, clearly unwilling to give ammunition to the BJP.
Vijayan slammed the Congress for shunning its own flag at the road show. “Everyone will ask why the Congress has become a party that can’t even use its own flag…. Why did the Congress flag become untouchable for them?” he said at a news conference
in Ernakulam.
“They want the votes of the IUML but not their flag. Why did the Congress degenerate into this situation where it avoids using its own flag to ensure the IUML’s flag is not on display?”
Vijayan reminded the Congress of the history of its flag — on which the national flag is based — and said that “hiding” it amounted to forgetting the “brave freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives to hold that flag aloft”.
Union minister Smriti Irani, who campaigned for the BJP candidate in Wayanad, K. Surendran, also took a swipe at Rahul.
She told reporters that “hiding” IUML flags indicated that Rahul was “either ashamed of the IUML’s support or he wouldn’t be able to hide his association with the IUML when he visits north India or visits temples”.
The Congress hit back at Vijayan saying it was for the party itself to decide how to organise a road show.
“The chief minister need not conduct a class on how we should use our flag,” leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan told a news conference in Thiruvananthapuram.
He said that while it was the BJP that had created the flag controversy in 2019, this time Vijayan was doing their bidding.
“He is doing all this to please the BJP. He is trying to create space for the BJP fearing the scandals would catch up with him,” Satheesan said.
The Congress has been targeting the chief minister over a payoff controversy involving his daughter, Veena Vijayan, and her now-defunct tech company that is part of a money-laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate.
The central agency filed the case taking cognisance of a complaint by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office about an allegedly illegal payoff of Rs 1.72 crore to Veena’s firm from a Kerala mining company.
