Minutes after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan termed the Congress blockade of actor Joju George as 'fascist' in the Assembly on Wednesday and warned that the government would not fold its hands and remain a mute spectator when artistic freedom is trampled upon, Congress MLAs said in the House that the protest against Joju would continue till he apologised.
"We will go ahead with our agitation against Joju George until he apologised for what he had done," Congress's Aluva MLA Anvar Sadath said. However, Youth Congress state president Shafi Parambil, who sat near Sadath, said that his organisation would not disrupt film shootings in Kerala. He agreed that Youth Congress members had barged into shooting locations in one or two areas but said the Youth Congress was against targeting the film industry as a whole. Both Shafi and Sadath said that the KPCC chief, K Sudhakaran, himself had made this clear.
"Nonetheless, the chief minister's attempt to brand us fascist just because there were minor disturbances in a couple of places was unfortunate. It will only help to embolden the real fascists," Shafi said. Congress's K Babu said that a compromise with Joju was nearly achieved. "But a certain party and some persons in the film industry scuttled this, " the Thrippunithura MLA said.
Earlier, while responding to a Submission moved by actor and CPM MLA M Mukesh in the Assembly on Wednesday, the chief minister said the government would not allow anyone to take law into their own hands.
Mukesh said that the Congress had said false things about Joju, even called him a womaniser and molester. The actor said that even Joju's kids were threatened. Mukesh said the Congress was taking things a bit too far and had disrupted the shooting of actors like Prithviraj who had no connection to the incident. Mukesh also said that Joju was getting repeated calls asking him to apologise or face the consequences. The actor, in short, wanted protection for both actors and the conduct of film shoots.
The chief minister gave him strong assurance, and in sharp words. "We will not tolerate such behaviour. We will take them on without mercy," the chief minister said. He likened the Congress agitation against actor Joju to fascist tendencies that dictated what to eat and what to wear. "We call such people primitive anti-socials," he said, and added: "The act of forcing into shooting sites and unleashing violence is part of such fascist inclinations."
Later, Congress's K Babu told the House that fascist behaviour suited the CPM more. "We know who denied screens for a film that had a character saying 'to vanquish the bourgeoisie, you will have to be a bigger bourgeoisie'," Babu said. He was referring to the strong CPM backlash against the Arun Kumar Aravind-Murali Gopy film 'Left Right Left'. He also reminded the House of the violence inflicted by the DYFI on writer Paul Zachariah in Kannur, who Babu said was a Left sympathiser.
Mukesh and other LDF MLAs had said that Joju was provoked by the sight of a chemotherapy patient and an ambulance trapped in the road blockade organised by the Congress along the Vyttila stretch of the National Highway.
Anwar Sadath disputed this. He said there was no ambulance and a cancer patient. "There was a youth who was on his way to pick his chemotherapy patient mother from a hospital. The rest is a lie," Sadath said.
