Kerala's Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan on Thursday, January 18 took a dig at Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for "paying obeisance" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Satheesan, reacting to the Bengaluru Registrar of Companies reporting grave violations of rules by the Chief Minister's daughter Veena Vijayan’s Bengaluru-based IT firm Exalogic Solution, demanded a court-monitored probe into it.
At a media interaction, Satheesan, in response to a question that Vijayan had received and gave a send off to Modi when he arrived early this week to Kochi on a two day visit, said, "It is a courtesy to do that when the Prime Minister comes visiting to a state. There is nothing wrong with that, but I am sure all of you would have seen the manner in which Vijayan was paying obeisance to Modi."
"Lot of things are often said about Vijayan and his tough demeanour, but those who have seen the way he was standing before Modi, eyebrows have been raised. Am sure all would have seen Vijayan’s uncharacteristic body language when he greeted and bid Modi goodbye at the airport," he said.
Satheesan emphasised the need of a court monitored probe as quite a few cases directly affecting Vijayan "are begun by central agencies with a bang, but fizzle out soon" and attributed it to "the unholy alliance that Vijayan has with the Sangh Parivar".
Congress MP K Muraleedharan said that all the action that has been taking place with Modi visiting Thrissur twice in a gap of two weeks can be seen as Vijayan gifting the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat to the BJP by putting a low key fight in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and if it happens it would be a trade off to the cases that Vijayan is caught up with.
In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress candidate won Thrissur with a margin of over 90,000 votes against the Left candidate and in third place was BJP candidate, actor Suresh Gopi, who got around 27,000 votes less than the Left candidate.