Congress ally and Kerala MP lands in a soup over ‘surprise’ lunch with PM in Parliament

A “surprise” lunch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Parliament canteen in New Delhi last week, as the 17th Lok Sabha headed to a close, has landed Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) Kollam MP N K Premachandran in the middle of a slugfest in his home state of Kerala.

The ruling CPI(M)-led Kerala government is using the lunch, in which Premachandran was the only MP belonging to an INDIA bloc party present, to attack the Congress, saying Premachandran sharing a table with Modi a demonstration of “the Congress-BJP nexus”.

The RSP is an ally of the Congress in Kerala while it sides with the Left in West Bengal. All three parties – the CPI(M), RSP and Congress – are a part of the Opposition INDIA bloc.

On Tuesday, CPI(M) trade union wing Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) held a march in Kollam demanding Premachandran’s resignation over the issue, with the lunch providing fresh fodder for the CPI(M) and Congress’s constant barbs at each other in Kerala, particularly over the BJP.

Sources said that the Kollam MP was one of eight parliamentarians — the other seven including 4 from the BJP; 1 from the TDP that is considering an alliance with the BJP; 1 of the BSP, that is equidistant from both the NDA and INDIA; and 1 of the BJD, which is friendly towards the BJP — who had received a call around 2.30 pm on February 7 from PM Modi, telling them: “Chaliye, aapko ek punishment dena hai (Let’s go, I have to deliver you a punishment today).”

Premachandran’s RSP was earlier part of the CPI(M)-led LDF and he won twice from Kollam under its banner, before shifting allegiance to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. He retained the seat as a UDF candidate in the 2019 elections.

CPI(M)