Top Kerala CPI-M leaders strongly condemned the attack on Sitaram Yechury that took place inside their national party office in New Delhi by two suspected right-wing activists on Wednesday evening.
As soon as the Communist Party of India-Marxist workers came to know of the incident, they started preparing to take out protest marches across the state.
According to the party, the incident occurred just before Yechury was to address the press meet after the two-day meeting of the CPI-M politburo.
Around 4.00pm, Yechury was about to enter the party's press conference hall when two people shouting "Bharat Mata ki Jai" rushed menacingly towards Yechury. But the staff of the party office quickly intervened and rescued Yechury.
The Delhi Police took away the attackers, who also tried to damage the office furniture.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is in Delhi, in his Facebook page strongly condemned the attack on Yechury.
"It amounts to an attack on Indian democracy," said Vijayan.
State Finance Minister Thomas Issac told the media in Thiruvananthapuram that this was probably the first of its kind incident where a national leader was attacked inside the national office of a national party.
"Such an incident is completely unheard of. This is an attack by the BJP-RSS, as they have been doing this against all who stand against them. I will not be surprised to hear that police remained a silent witness to it."
"If they (BJP-RSS) think they can scare a party like us through these attacks, they are mistaken," said Issac.
Senior CPI-M central committee member M.V. Govindan termed this as a "clear example of unleashing fascist tendencies" by the BJP-RSS.
"This has to be dealt with very strongly, if not, the whole principle of democracy will vanish. This is a dangerous trend," said Govindan.
Former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy reacted by saying all the secular and democratic forces should join to condemn this heinous attack unleashed by right-wing Hindutva forces.
But senior Kerala BJP leaders were not willing to buy what the CPI-M is alleging.
"Let us not be in a hurry to come to conclusions as to who are behind these, and without a proper probe, it's not fair to accuse any particular party or organisation. Who knows the CPI-M themselves would have hired these people and enacted this," BJP leader V.V. Rajesh told the media in Thiruvananthapuram.
"Let the probe begin and find out the truth and until then, let us not come to conclusions," the senior state BJP leader said.
Another top BJP leader, J. Padmakumar, said their party or its organisations were not involved in such activities.
"We are certainly opposed to the CPI-M and its ideology and all along we have a policy of countering the CPI-M through our ideology, not by any other means," said Radhakrishnan.