Besieged by the anti-Mamkootathil campaign, Congress vows to take its fightback to CPI(M)-BJP doorsteps

Besieged by increasingly strident street protests for Rahul Mamkootathil resignation as MLA on charges of sexual misconduct, the Congress vowed to take the party’s fightback to the doorsteps of the CPI(M) and BJP leaderships in Kerala.

On Tuesday, Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan threatened to open a Pandora’s box of “incriminating evidence of moral degeneracy” against CPI(M) and BJP “big names”, which he claimed would send the leadership of both the parties scurrying for cover and take the wind out of their respective recriminatory campaigns against the Congress.

The Congress warning about a looming tit-for-tat political counterstrike came close on the heels of the CPI(M) and the BJP accusing Mr. Satheesan and KPCC working president Shafi Parambil, MP, of guilt by association and bringing them under the purview of their respective and increasingly belligerent anti-Mamkootathil campaigns.

On Monday night, SFI activists marched to Mr. Satheesan’s official residence at the Cantonment House in Thiruvananthapuram with placards featuring a rooster resembling Mr. Mamkootathil as a satirical political metaphor for the legislators’ alleged sexually predatory behaviour towards women.

Early on Tuesday, BJP workers brought up their rear by lugging along a stud bull used solely for breeding purposes.

Theatrically wagging a finger at the CPI(M), Mr. Satheesan said the “imminent damning revelations” would expose Mr. Vijayan’s court of “sex offenders, misogynists and corrupt criminals”.

Mr. Satheesan asked BJP workers to keep the bull tethered outside their State president Rajiv Chandrasekhar’s house because the Congress would soon pry open a can of worms, which would cause them to hide their faces in shame.

Youth Congress workers countered by erecting billboards advertising a fowl farm on the roads leading to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s official residence at the Cliff House.

CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan, stated that the party feared no bombshell revelation.

“The Satheesan-Shafi-Mamookotathil triumvirate in the Congress is stonewalling intra-party demands for the Palakkad MLAs’ resignation by threatening to spill the beans on other leaders and drag them down together with them into the Opposition’s deepening morass of sticky scandals,” he said.

Mr. Govindan stated that there was no equivalence between the charges of inappropriate behaviour against Mr. Mamkootathil and M. Mukseh, Kollam MLA.

“The accusation against Mr. Mukesh is belated and decades old. Mr. Mukesh is facing trial. In contrast, the incriminating evidence against Mr. Mamkootathil is contemporaneous and mounting every passing minute, igniting a raging debate about women’s safety,” he added.