Shoes hurled at Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan’s convoy, invites threat of ‘action’

KOCHI: Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday warned those holding protests against Nava Kerala Sadas that they would have to face the consequences if they tried to disrupt meetings. He was addressing a sadas event at Kothamangalam after KSU activists threw shoes at the special bus carrying the ministers.
The government had cancelled the public outreach programmes for a day after CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran’s death and the bus was attacked after the events were resumed.Vijayan said if protesters continued with actions like throwing things (at events/bus), necessary steps would be taken against them.

He said there was a huge participation of public at Nava Kerala Sadas programmes. “Their response reflects the need of the programme. This causes problems for some people. We don’t know what their problem is, but they seem to face serious problems,” he said. “An issue we saw at many places is that hundreds or thousands gather along our route. Then, a guy who stands near them waves a black flag. Residents ignore it, thinking why they are making such a mockery. That’s good, such people should be isolated,” Vijayan said.

“However, when we were on our route today, there was a different experience. Earlier, I had shared with you the issue of (protesters) jumping in front of our vehicle. That didn’t occur on a large scale later. Today, they (the protesters) threw (something) at our bus. We don’t know what happened to them,” he said.