'Congress lacks genuine ideological motivation to oppose BJP': INDIA bloc ally Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan hit out at its INDIA bloc ally Congress and said on Thursday that the grand-old party “lacks any genuine ideological or practical motivation to oppose the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party], beyond the rhetoric crafted by news-centric PR agencies". He reportedly slammed the Congress for fielding Choudhary Lal Singh from the Udhampur Lok Sabha constituency in Jammu and Kashmir

Vijayan alleged that Singh had participated in a rally in support of the accused in the rape and murder of an . "This clearly shows that the Congress is not taking a strong stand against the Sangh Parivar," Vijayan was quoted by PTI as saying during a press conference in this Muslim-dominated district. 

CM Pinarayi Vijayan is a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — which is.

Choudhary Lal . He is a former BJP leader. He had rejoined the Congress at its headquarters in Delhi last month.

Singh has been fielded from the Udhampur Parliamentary constituency of Jammu and Kashmir. He will contest against BJP candidate and Union Minister Jitendra Singh and the Democratic Progressive Azad Party has fielded GM Saroori.

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Singh won the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat twice on a Congress ticket in 2004 and 2009. He switched from the Congress to the BJP in 2014 and was also a minister in the previous PDP-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir, which collapsed in June 2018 after the national party pulled out of the alliance.

Several months before the fall of the government, Singh resigned from the BJP and floated the DSSP following an uproar over his participation in a rally in support of the accused in the rape and murder of the eight-year-old girl in Kathua in January 2018. However, he defended his participation in