Kozhikode: An election-season image carefully crafted to underline the LDF government’s welfare credentials in Kozhikode has boomeranged after conflicting claims from the pensioner who was featured in the video.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hours after a video surfaced showing him alleging party leaders’ pressure behind the handover of his social security pension amount of \u20b92000 to state secretary M V Govindan, he reversed his stand, triggering opposition attacks and a debate over political stage-management.<\/p>\n
The incident at the centre of the debate occurred on February 9, when the Vikasana Munnetta Jatha led by Govindan reached Balussery. Melekkulangara Moidi, a resident of Iyyad, walked onto the stage and handed over his pension amount to the CPM leader in the presence of senior party figures, including district secretary M Mehboob. After briefly accepting the cash, Govindan immediately returned it and placed it back into Moideen’s pocket.<\/p>\n
The CPM widely circulated the video of the gesture through its social-media handles as testimony to the party’s grassroots support and welfare outreach.<\/p>\n
However, the narrative took a dramatic turn on Monday after another video emerged in which Moidi claimed the act had been pre-planned. In the clip, he is heard saying that local CPM leaders had asked him to hand over his pension amount and assured him that Govindan would return the money on stage.<\/p>\n
“Local CPM leaders told me to give my pension amount to Govindan Master. They promised that the party secretary would return it. They did as promised,” Moidi says in the video.<\/p>\n
The footage was quickly amplified by Congress and BJP supporters online, who cited it as evidence of a staged publicity exercise by the CPM.<\/p>\n
Soon after, Left-leaning social-media handles released yet another video of Moidi retracting his allegation. In the latest clip, he denies any pressure from party leaders and maintains that the gesture was entirely voluntary.<\/p>\n
“No leaders compelled me to give the amount. It was my own decision to hand over the cash. There is nothing more in it,” he says.<\/p>\n
Despite the reversal, opposition cyber activists have alleged that the second video was recorded under pressure, calling the entire episode an example of a botched PR exercise by the CPM ahead of the Assembly elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kozhikode: An election-season image carefully crafted to underline the LDF government’s welfare credentials in Kozhikode has boomeranged after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[193969,193975,45,49,48,193966,193974,193968,133,193971,193963,193977,193964,193970,193976,193972,131,132,193973,193965,193967],"class_list":["post-478678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-ai-political-analysis","tag-ai-political-strategy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cpm-pension-stunt","tag-election-campaign-ethics","tag-election-publicity-stunts","tag-finance","tag-kerala-election-news","tag-kozhikode-election-controversy","tag-kozhikode-political-events","tag-ldf-welfare-claims","tag-llm-election-fraud-detection","tag-llm-public-perception","tag-opposition-attacks-cpm","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-political-narrative-manipulation","tag-political-stage-management-kerala","tag-social-security-pension-kerala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}