The office of Kerala’s lone BJP MlA O Rajagopal at Pappanamcode in Thiruvananthapuram was attacked by miscreants in the wee hours of Sunday. The office and a vehicle parked inside the compound suffered damage. The BJP blamed the Marxists but the CPI(M)’s Thiruvananthapuram district leadership rejected the allegation.
The miscreants smashed the windowpanes of the MlA’s office and destroyed the board installed there. The windshields of a car parked outside the office were also smashed. It is said that the attack was carried out by miscreants who came on motorcycles. The area has been witnessing conflicts between the CPI(M) and BJP of late.
According to BJP activists, a gang of Marxists had hurled stones at the MlA’s office at about 1.30 AM Sunday. BJP workers were reportedly present at the office till midnight. The attack seemed to have been carried out after they had left. The BJP’s State office in Thiruvananthapuram had come under alleged Marxist attack in September last year.
While Rajagopal said the attack was carried out by the CPI(M), State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan said that the Kannur lobby of the CPI(M) was behind it. “What gives the CPI(M) workers the courage to do such things is their belief that big brother Vijayan (Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan) would protect them,” said Rajagopal.
The MlA, a former Union minister, said that the CPI(M) activists had been perpetrating violence against BJP workers in the Nemom constituency of late and the attack on his office was a sequel to this. The offices of several BJP councilors in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation had come under attack several times but the police were not doing anything to stop this, the BJP alleged.
“This attack was not accidental or isolated. It was pre-planned. There was a conspiracy between CPI(M) leader V Sivankutty (who had lost the Assembly election to Rajagopal) and the Kannur lobby of the CPI(M),” Kummanam said in Alappuzha. Pinarayi himself is said to be the leader of the CPI(M)’s Kannur lobby.
The State BJP chief alleged that there was a conscious effort from the part of the CPI(M) to spread violence in Thiruvananthapuram district. He called for Pinarayi’s immediate intervention in the matter.