Kerala Assembly Elections 2026: CM dares Satheesan to explain latter’s deal with RSS

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday sought to counter the United Democratic Front's (UDF) campaign rhetoric that the Left Democratic Front (LDF) had struck a mutually beneficial deal with the Bharatiya Janata Party in key Assembly constituencies in Kerala. 

Mr. Vijayan posted on his Facebook page a 2006 photograph showing the Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan lighting a lamp in front of a picture of Hindutva ideologue M.S. Golwalkar who served as the second Sarsanghchalak (Chief) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to challenge the UDF narrative.

Mr. Vijayan asked Mr. Satheesan to expound on what “clandestine deal” with the Sangh Parivar compelled him to pay homage to Golwalkar at a public event organised by the RSS to celebrate the extreme right-wing Hindutva ideologue’s 100th birth anniversary.

Mr. Vijayan said that, when questioned about his attendance at the RSS event, Mr. Satheesan covered his tracks by claiming that the photograph was of a different function in 2013. (The Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s [CPI(M)] social media handles regularly broadcast the photograph to cast aspersions on Mr. Satheesan’s credentials. Mr. Satheesan has countered the CPI(M)’s portrayal of him as a surreptitious RSS supporter by stating that he attended the release of a book by RSS thinker P. Parameswaran in Thrissur, with the proviso that the late Chief Minister and veteran CPI(M) leader V.S. Achuthanandan had released the book in Thiruvananthapuram.)

Before 2006 polls

Mr. Vijayan said secular people in Kerala were waiting for a lucid reply from Mr. Satheesan. He noted that the event’s timing (in February 2006) had electoral import. He said Mr. Satheesan offered flowers and stood in supplication in front of Golwalkar’s picture in the run-up to the 2006 Assembly elections. Mr. Vijayan noted that the RSS had staged the event at the Manakkapady School grounds in Mr. Satheesan’s constituency in Paravur.

Mr. Vijayan said Hindu Aikya Vedi State president’s assertion (in 2022) that the RSS had aided Mr. Satheesan’s victory in the 2001 and 2006 elections in the Paravur constituency had cast doubt in the minds of voters about Mr. Satheesan’s secular and statedly anti-RSS stance.

Mr. Vijayan said Mr. Satheesan had repeatedly sidestepped questions on the latter’s dalliance with the RSS and sought to obfuscate the relationship through misleading statements.

“People cannot be blamed for thinking that Mr. Satheesan’s genuflection in front of the RSS leader’s photograph was a bid to secure Sangh Parivar votes. Kerala is waiting to hear from Mr. Satheesan,” Mr. Vijayan added.