By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram

The Congress Party in Kerala suffered a huge embarrassment yesterday when the chief whip of the government flagged off the “run for unity” event organised nationwide by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The event was organised to mobilise the party’s cadres and sympathisers and to project its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi as a strong leader in the run-up to next year’s general elections.

Modi also hopes to raise funds during the event for building the Statue of Unity, the world’s tallest statue, which would be a monument to Sardar Vallabhai Patel, India’s first interior minister.

P C George, the chief whip of Congress-led United Democratic Front government in Kerala, and vice president of the Kerala Congress (Mani), said he attended the event with full conviction and described his critics as “morons” who lacked a clear understanding of history.

“I have done nothing wrong in paying homage to a great leader. It’s like (his party chairman) K M Mani attending the recent plenum of the (opposition) CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist),” George later said justifying his action.

George’s endorsement of its campaign came as a great morale booster for the BJP which has never won an election in Kerala.

George was in Kottayam to flag off the run. He had a saffron shawl wrapped around his neck, as he waved a T-shirt with pictures of Modi on the front and back.

Besides the Congress, leaders of his own party also criticised George.

K M Mani, the party’s chairman and state finance minister, said his party would discuss the issue at the appropriate forum.

Asked if he was at the right place, he said he had, like all Indians, studied in school that Patel was the “Iron man of India”.

“Look, this was not a BJP programme. I was told about the construction of the world’s largest statue, and I went for it. What’s wrong, I attended a programme meant to honour Sardar Patel,” George said.

In response, Congress Party spokesman Pandalam Sudhakaran told reporters in the state capital that what George perhaps forgot was that he is also chief whip of Kerala’s ruling coalition.

“This is totally unacceptable. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, state Congress chief Ramesh Chennithala and George’s party leader K M Mani should take appropriate action against George, who is known for breaching discipline. If such a thing had happened in our party, he would have been booted out. Since George belongs to an ally of the Congress, it’s his party which should take the call,” said Sudhakaran.

George’s party colleague Antony Raju said: “He should not have taken part in the function. He should have been careful; it was a programme of communal elements, so what if it was in the name of Patel? Who does not know that this is nothing but drumming up popularity for Modi? George has erred seriously.”

George is not one unfamiliar with controversy.

He was the one who made public, earlier this year, the news that then state forest minister K B Ganesh Kumar was beaten by his lover’s husband. That revelation meant the end of Ganesh Kumar’s term as minister, and his marriage ended in divorce.