NEW DELHI: Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary MA Baby on Saturday raised strong objections over Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s remarks at the recent INDIA bloc meeting of opposition parties on June 8, saying that “nobody is asking Rahul Gandhi to hug Pinarayi Vijayan” and all that the Left party was asking for was that the leader of opposition should “stop being a facilitator for the ED and the Modi govt” by demanding the arrest of opposition leaders.Baby’s reaction came a day after Gandhi released the comments made by him at the INDIA meeting where while telling the members to get rid of the notion that the INDIA bloc is not coordinated, he said, “These are all ideas the BJP is putting out. This is not true. I am 100% sure, and I can vouch right now for the DMK. When it comes to defending the idea of India, every single person will be in this room. We have our fights, but if you are asking me to go and hug the ex-CM of Kerala – I cannot and I will not, because I have an ongoing political fight with him.““So we have to be flexible, and we have to realise that there is a full-scale assault on us trying to prove that the opposition is weak, is disorganised,” he added.“Nobody is asking Rahul Gandhi to hug Pinarayi Vijayan. On the contrary all that we are asking is that he stop being a facilitator for the ED and the Modi government by demanding the arrest of Pinarayi Vijayan (former Kerala CM) and other opposition leaders. That is not the job of the Leader of the Opposition,” Baby said in a post on X on Saturday.Ahead of the INDIA bloc meeting, Baby in a sharply worded letter to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge had pointed to allegations by Rahul Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders during the Kerala polls of CPI(M) and the BJP colluding and calls for ED action against then CM Pinarayi Vijayan.The Left party had asked the Congress to “clear the air regarding such disruptive moves” with CPI(M)’s Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas strongly raising the matter at the INDIA meeting.
