Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a massive roadshow in Palakkad on Tuesday, marking his fifth visit to Kerala this year as part of the BJP-led NDA’s efforts to boost support for its candidates in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Accompanied by party candidates C Krishnakumar (Palakkad), Niveditha Subramanian (Ponnani), and BJP state president K Surendran, PM Modi arrived in Palakkad via helicopter and led a half-hour roadshow along a barricaded route, greeted by enthusiastic BJP workers.
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However, the event sparked controversy as the ruling Left democratic front (LDF) accused the BJP of sidelining the NDA’s Muslim candidate during the roadshow. Hours after PM Modi’s extensive roadshow, CPI(M) leader A K Balan alleged that the NDA candidate from Malappuram constituency, M Abdul Salam, was excluded from the event despite earlier indications of his participation.
Balan claimed that it conveyed a “wrong message that a Muslim cannot stand close to Modi.” However, Salam refuted this allegation, stating that there was no discrimination involved.
According to Salam, he wasn’t invited to the roadshow and had only gone to Palakkad to meet PM Modi and invite him to Malappuram. “I met him and introduced myself as the candidate from Malappuram. He smiled at me and wished me good luck. I expressed my wish that he would visit Malappuram and then he moved on to the next person,” Salam, the only Muslim candidate of NDA from Kerala, told a TV channel, as PTI reported.
Additionally, Salam mentioned that Niveditha Subramanian, the NDA candidate from Ponnani, invited him to board the PM’s open roof vehicle, but security personnel said his name wasn’t on the list and the vehicle was already full. He further explained that while he would have liked to travel with Modi, he didn’t perceive any discrimination.
Apart from Salam’s alleged sidelining from the roadshow, the LDF took a dig at the Modi-led BJP for making frequent visits to Kerala. They suggested that these visits showed the BJP and Modi were afraid of losing in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Binoy Viswam, the Kerala state secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and a Rajya Sabha MP, stated that the BJP and PM Modi were scared of losing, and to hide this fear, they keep saying they would win for a third time.