Pinarayi shares dias with Madhani

21 March 2009
Thiruvananthapuram: Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan Saturday shared the dias in Kerala's Malapuram district with a new-found ally: People's Democratic Party (PDP) chief Abdul Nasir Madhani, whom the Left considered a pariah not too long ago.

Vijayan and Maudany campaigned in Kuttipuram for the ruling Left Democratic Front supported independent candidate Hussain Randathany, who is contesting the Ponanni Lok Sabha seat.

In 1998, then chief minister E.K. Nayanar had listed as one his government's achievements the arrest of Madhani for his alleged involvement in serial bomb blasts in Coimbatore in October 1996 targeting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani.

Madhani was subsequently acquitted and released from jail in 2007.

"We are looking into what his stand is today and hence there is no point in keeping people like Maudany and Raman Pillai (a former state BJP president) outside. Those who are raising this now are those who feel jittery (about the alliance)," Vijayan said Saturday.

Meanwhile, Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A.B. Bardhan, speaking to reporters in Delhi, described Madhani's party as "communal".

Reacting to this, Madhani told a TV channel in Kerala the PDP would not withdraw support to the Left government in the state just because of the statement.

"Our credentials are not based on certificates issued by any party. Even the present CPI ministers here in Kerala have publicly said that one of the reasons for their victory in the 2006 polls was on account of the votes of my party's supporters," Maudany added.