Anti-incumbency also a factor, says Kanam Rajendran

Thiruvananthapuram: CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran has said that anti-government sentiments might have also reflected in the results of the Lok Sabha elections.

"I don't agree that there was such an anti-government mood in the state. However, the fact that I can't entirely agree with that thinking does not mean that such a possibility should not be discussed," he said at the Press Club's meet-the-press programme on Saturday.

"There was a dip in secular votes polled in favour of the LDF. There are many reasons for it. There was large scale propaganda against the LDF. A K Antony had propagated that the Left could not become an alternative to Narendra Modi. Congress and the BJP had both campaigned that the LDF was against the believers in the Sabarimala issue. UDF also propagated that they would come to power after the elections. Both BJP and Congress visited households to unleash communal propaganda against the LDF."

Mr Rajendran said that the LDF stand in the Sabarimala issue was the reason for its defeat, but the government will not go back on its commitment to implement the Supreme Court verdict against restrictions on women of fertile age.

"If the UDF supported the LDF in the Sabarimala issue, the untoward incidents that happened would have been avoided," he said.

Mr Rajendran said that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan could not be changed like people change a shirt.

"It is the media that insist that the chief minister should change his style, against the backdrop of the poll defeat," he said.