Hours-long tension between the Congress and Youth Congress (YC) activists and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) activists over the Navakerala Sadas in Kunnathunadu Assembly constituency culminated in the YC mandalam committee office in Kolancherry getting ransacked.
The Congress and the Youth Congress leadership alleged it to be the act of CPI(M) and DYFI, an allegation that was shot down by the other side. A protest march led by the Ernakulam District Congress Committee president Muhammed Shiyas was staged in Kolancherry town.
No one was at the office operating out of the Kolancherry private bus stand building at the time of the incident. The YC leadership was busy securing the release of their activists who were arrested by the Puthencruz police when the incident took place around 7 p.m.
“Earlier in Puthencruz town, we had given the DYFI workers a dose of their own medicine which the Chief Minister has all along described as ‘life saving action.’ They had come in procession to smash our office to cover up their shame over that treatment,” said Manoj P., Congress mandalam committee president, Puthencruz. While the Congress said a petition was lodged with the Puthencruz police, the latter said they were yet to get a complaint.
Mr. Shiyas said a bigger march and public meeting to protest the alleged violence would be held in Kolancherry town on Wednesday evening.
Earlier in the day, the threat of a pitched battle between the two sides loomed large at Puthencruz town for a while before the police intervened to defuse the situation. This was after Congress and YC activists waved black flag at the Navakerala Sadas entourage led by the Chief Minister only for the DYFI activists to rush in to resist it.
Both sides stood their ground maintaining violent postures and shouting challenges with some even possessing stones and sticks to go at one another. However, the police personnel stood in between, separating the two sides and preventing the tension from descending into physical violence.
The police arrested and moved the protesting Congress and YC activists to the Puthencruz police station. While the police claimed that 24 activists were taken into custody and were later released after being slapped with bailable charges, the Congress leadership claimed that more than 34, including a few who were taken on preventive detention, were taken into custody.
In a related incident, an attempt by YC activists to stage a black flag protest at Maradu when the Sadas bus was headed to Thripunithura was foiled by the police and DYFI activists.
DCC general secretary Raju P. Nair, Mahila Congress district secretary Devipriya Unnikrishnan, former Thiruvankulam mandalam committee office-bearer of YC Rahul Sukumaran, and Congress Thripunithura block committee member Deepak Menon were taken into custody as preventive detention. They were released after the session at Thripunithura.