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General Elections 2009
Left has trained its guns on two of the high profile Congress candidates on the Israel issue, former UN Under-secretary General Shashi Tharoor and former state Minister KV Thomas. The party had made scratching attack on these candidates and dubbed them as 'Israel agents' in Kerala. Almost all Muslim parties in Kerala had rallied behind Left and have declared that they will work against these two candidates.
Congress candidate in Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor is struggling to defend his article in Israeli daily Haaretz, while his counterpart in Ernakulam, KV Thomas, is trying to wash his hands off the gift he presented to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.
Shashi Tharoor has openly praised Israel in his article -'India's Israel Envy'- which was published in Australian and Israeli newspapers.
"…When Indians watch Israel take the fight to the enemy, killing those who launched rockets against it and dismantling many of the sites from which the rockets flew, some cannot resist wishing that they could do something similar in Pakistan," wrote Tharoor in Israeli daily The Haretz. The Left campaign in his constituency is focused on this one sentence.
Tharoor is trying his best defend himself, but his poor grip on Malayalam and the burden of contradicting his own sentiments make his justifications unconvincing.
Another Congress candidater, Former State Minister KV Thomas had once taken a gift to Ariel Sharon in New Delhi. It is an act he is now regretting. Thomas says that he was just doing his duty, that he was just a courier and that someone else would have done it if he hadn’t. All that could be true, but the strong Muslim pockets in his Ernakulam constituency are not ready to believe him, who they already see as an Israeli agent.
"Israel is the cruel nation...The US was the only nation that refused to support the UN resolution condemning the massacre in Gaza. The UPA government is toeing that line. Instead of isolating Israel, the Congress is eager to maintain diplomatic ties and enter into new contracts with Israel," says CPI-M mouthpiece 'Deshabhimani'.
Another victim of Lefts anti-Israel campaign is the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a constituent of the Opposition UDF. They are contesting two seats, on which one of the candidates is none other than Union Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahmed. Left parties alleges the Union Minister E Ahammed, of the UPA government of following a 'pro-American and pro-Israel foreign policies'.
'Israel' factor is expected to help the CPI(M) further in its ongoing attempts to rely most on the Muslim community in this election which it fights on the back foot owing to an anti-incumbency wave.
Tags: kerala, cpi m, lok sabha polls 2009, rajesh krishna, ak antony, india israel defence missile deal, udf, ldf, iuml, shashi tharoor, kv thomas, israel.
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