Kerala polls: Pinarayi Vijayan slams Rahul Gandhi, Congress for ‘aiding BJP to come to power in various States’

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday (March 26, 2026) slammed the Congress and party leader Rahul Gandhi, whom he termed “as a person who never learns from his acts and lacks proper perspective and understanding of various issues,” for “aiding the BJP to gain power” in a some States, including Bihar, Delhi and Rajasthan. Mr. Vijayan also criticised Mr. Gandhi for “torpedoing the Opposition alliance against the BJP.”

Mr. Vijayan said Mr. Gandhi, though a national leader of the Congress, “does not even match up to the local leaders of his party in terms of his competence to comprehend various issues.”

“He has been proven unfit to be a political leader. He never learns from his various acts and never corrects himself. Mr. Gandhi has often failed to get a grasp of the issues,” said Mr. Vijayan while responding to the statement of the Congress leader on why Central agencies had spared the Kerala Chief Minister from interrogation.

Mr. Vijayan said the acquittal of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal and his party leaders in the Delhi liquor policy scam case was “a tight slap on the face” of Mr. Gandhi and the Congress, which “supported the BJP’s ulterior moves” in cooking up a false case against the former Delhi Chief Minister. The BJP had used Central investigation agencies to foist false cases against Opposition party leaders, including Mr. Kejriwal. The Congress joined hands with the BJP in persecuting Mr. Kejriwal, which helped the BJP return to power in Delhi, said Mr. Vijayan, while accusing the Congress and Mr. Gandhi of being the “B team of the BJP.”

Mr. Vijayan also blamed the Congress party for paving the way for the BJP to come to power in Rajasthan, “a State where it was unlikely to return to power.”

The Congress created instability in the Opposition alliance in Bihar, which made things easy for the BJP. In Kerala too, the Congress had struck deals with the BJP to fight the LDF. The Congress and the BJP-RSS combine had jointly fielded candidates against CPI(M) leaders E.M.S. Nambudrippad and A.K. Gopalan earlier, he said.

‘Electoral understandings’

The Chief Minister alleged that the Congress and the BJP had entered into “electoral understandings” in several local bodies of Kerala during the recent local body elections.

“The two parties had also made a tacit poll tie-up in Nemom and an adjacent Assembly constituency in the 2021 Assembly polls where a BJP candidate won the seat. While the vote share of the Congress plummeted in Nemom, facilitating the victory of the BJP candidate, the votes of the BJP were not seen polled for its candidate in an adjacent constituency, which was a quid pro quo arrangement to ensure the victory of the Congress candidate there,” he alleged.

Mr. Vijayan also criticised the police notice to journalists and politicians who shared the picture of an official communication from the Election Commission of India (ECI), which was found bearing the BJP’s seal.

“One cannot clamp down on protests against an unjust act. The police would have acted on the instructions of the ECI on the issue as the State government does not have control over the police during the poll period. The State Electoral Officer, who has ordered an inquiry into the shocking developments, shall let people know what transpired in the issue,” he demanded.