Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 30 (IANS): Newly appointed State Congress president K.Sudhakaran on Wednesday attacked the Pinarayi Vijayan government and said that had it not been for the Covid pandemic, people would not have voted them to power again.

Sudhakaran, who also hails from Kannur, the home town of Vijayan, are long standing foes.

On Wednesday, Sudhakaran while interacting with the media blasted the CPI-M and its present leadership for their wrong doings.

"We all know that elections took place during the pandemic times. We admit we were not able to reach the people because of the pandemic. We were not able to conduct election rallies and meetings, while Vijayan was able to reach out. Had it not been for the Covid, people would have spat on the face of the Vijayan government and thrown them out," said Sudhakaran.

On the alleged gold smuggling cases in which new links with the CPI-M cadres are being reported in the past one week, he said, "All those who are doing this are known people to the top brass of the CPI-M leadership in Kannur. Their role model is none other than Vijayan, who we all saw what happened during the now infamous Kerala gold smuggling case. Were not Vijayan's close aides in his own office not involved in it Initially he feigned ignorance about prime accused Swapna Suresh, now all know what his relationship with her was."

He showed a bundle of papers and said this was a 250-page report filed by the Customs in the Kerala gold smuggling case.

"Vijayan is silent on the references made in this report which says that there was serious breach of protocols when meetings of the UAE Consul General and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan took place through Swapna Suresh and M.Sivasankar (now suspended top IAS officer and was secretary to Vijayan) at the residences of both. These meetings had by passed the state protocols and also the Ministry of External Affairs. What was Vijayan discussing and even after more than a week passing, he is yet to come clean on the Customs report," said Sudhakaran.