Kerala CM Alleges Priyanka Gandhi Contesting Wayanad By-Election in liaison with Jamaat-E-Islami

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday accused Congress candidate Priyanka Gandhi Vadra of contesting the Wayanad by-election with the support of Jamaat-e-Islami, which is widely perceived to hold Muslim fundamentalist views. Challening his adversary to clear his stand on the support from the organisation, Vijayan, whose CPI (M)-led LDF is contesting the election, appears to place his party at loggerheads with the INDIA bloc allied to it.

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The CPI has renominated Sathyan Mokeri from the Wayanad constituency against Gandhi Vadra. This will be the third time that the IUML, a mainstream Muslim party will be part of the Congress in Wayanad, as it was during Rahul Gandhi's campaign in this region. The Congress had no response to Vijayan's claims by press time.

In the Facebook post, Vijayan questioned whether Congress was secular enough by saying "The Congress's secular mask has completely fallen off in this Wayanad by-election. Priyanka Gandhi is running with the support of Jamaat-e-Islami. What is the Congress's position on this?" Again, he went to question whether the ideology of Jamaat-e-Islami supported by Priyanka could be a Congress affiliated value in the first place because Jamaat-e-Islami ideology does not give much merit to national interest and democracy.

Adding, "If the Congress really believes in secularism, it must reject all sorts of communalism. Can the Congress, once and for all, come out and say that it does not need Jamaat-e-Islami votes?" Seeking to draw the lesson of resolution as presented by erstwhile CPI (M) leader EM Shankaran Namboodiripad, who had famously declared during the Thalassery bye election that they did not want RSS votes, he asked whether Congress could make the same declaration.