Anti-Rahul posters appear in Wayanad

Kozhikode: Suspense continued over the selection of Kerala's next chief minister as Congress remained undecided even 10 days after the election results were declared. Amid this, posters targeting opposition leader in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi surfaced in Wayanad and Kozhikode on Wednesday.The posters appeared on the name board of Rajiv Bhavan (the District Congress Committee office in Kalpetta) and near Priyanka Gandhi's office at North Karassery in Thiruvambady assembly constituency in Kozhikode. Printed in English, the anonymous posters warned that ‘Wayanad will become the next Amethi' and claimed that the Gandhi siblings would not be able to win again from the constituency. People noticed the posters in both districts on Wednesday morning. It is believed that unidentified persons put them up at the respective spots on Tuesday night.Following the appearance of these posters, the DCC leadership intervened and removed them. Authorities have reportedly obtained CCTV footage of the person who pasted the posters. The party also launched an internal enquiry to identify whether any party worker was involved. DCC leadership said such incidents would not be encouraged and warned that action would be taken if any party worker was found to be involved in them.One of the posters read, ‘Mr Rahul and Priyanka forget Wayanad. You won't win again from here', while another poster said, ‘RG and PG, this is not a warning, Kerala never forgive you for this blunder.' Another poster said, ‘Mr Rahul, KC (AICC general secretary KC Venugopal) might be your bag bearer but people of Kerala never forgive you'.Similar posters appeared outside Priyanka's MP office at Karassery, around 50 km away from Kalpetta, pointing to the possibility that the same people were behind both incidents.Last week too, local workers held protests at North Karassery and put up flex boards against attempts to make Venugopal the chief minister instead of opposition leader V D Satheesan, who led UDF to victory in 102 seats in the assembly election. Satheesan had staked his political career by saying he would relinquish politics if his front did not win 100 seats in the election.Amid the flex wars in Congress, it should be noted that a CPM worker had put up a flex board supporting Venugopal at Vadanappally in Thrissur on Monday. CCTV footage showed that CPM local committee member A Mohammed had placed a flex board that read ‘Let KC Lead' along with Venugopal's photograph and that board was attributed to ‘Save Congress' faction. The flex board incident gained traction after CCTV footage surfaced in the public domain.