Anti-CM protests buffet LDF government

Pinarayi attends functions under high security, greeted with jeers, black flags

Confrontational political protests demanding Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's resignation buffeted the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government on Sunday.

The protracted and bitter furore over Mr. Vijayan’s alleged misuse of the UAE consulate’s diplomatic channel for ‘smuggling contraband metal and tranches of foreign currency’ during the previous administration spurred Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers to attempt to waylay him on his way to attend public functions in Malappuram and Kozhikode.

A cavalcade of police vehicles whisked Mr. Vijayan to the venues cocooned in several layers of VIP security. Along the route, Congress, BJP and Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) workers greeted the CM's motorcade with black flags and jeers.

At Tavanoor in Malappuram, frenzied anti-government demonstrators scaled police barricades. They attempted to overrun the phalanx of law enforcers in anti-riot gear.

Television news channels magnified the protests with real-time coverage. They also broadcast footage of police stopping vehicles, barricading main thoroughfares, imposing traffic restrictions ‘without notice’, and forcing families to take detours to their homes.

Few channels showed police ordering passersby to remove black masks and supplant them with coloured ones provided by the government.

The ‘clampdown’ on black prompted Opposition workers to adopt the colour as a symbol of their resistance to the government. Anti-government demonstrators flaunted black shirts and black masks. They waved black flags as they braved water cannons, toppled iron barricades, and skirmished with the police in North Kerala.