Palakkad MLA Rahul Mamkootathil (file)
| Photo Credit: NIRMAL HARINDRAN
The Congress party in Kerala on Friday (November 28, 2025) appeared to walk a tight rope between questioning the “suspicious” political timing of the sexual assault case against Palakkad MLA Rahul Mamkootathil and remaining noncommittal about the street-protests-backed strident demands from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for his resignation as legislator.
United Democratic Front (UDF) convener Adoor Prakash told reporters that the CPI(M) had reverted to its “election-era playbook of foisting sensational crime cases” against Opposition leaders as part of its political gambit to alter the arc of the public debate in the run-up to the local body polls.
Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) disciplinary committee chairperson, who suspended Mr. Mamkootathil from the party’s membership in August 2025 after the MLA had found himself at the centre of a stormy serial sexual misconduct scandal, expressed scepticism about the timing of the case.
Speaking to reporters in Kottayam, Mr. Radhakrishnan said the government’s decision to book Mr. Mamkootathil seemed, prima facie, “political and not the result of a natural process of law.”
However, voices of dissonance in the Congress over the “Mamkootathil issue” emerged in the public domain on Friday. Congress leader Rajmohan Unnithan, MP, said the party “risked guilt by association in the public eye” if it did not act in an exemplary manner in the case.
Congress leader Shanimol Usman, among several women leaders who demanded Mr Mamkootathil’s resignation, said her position on the case remained unchanged.
Street protests
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) and the BJP revamped their attacks on the Congress for “shielding sexual offenders and giving the short shrift to women’s safety and welfare”.
CPI(M) and BJP workers took to the streets separately, burning Mr. Mamkootathil in the effigy in his Palakkad constituency. Both parties have threatened Statewide protests if the Congress failed to secure Mr. Mamkootathil’s resignation as MLA.
CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan said the Congress could salvage the “remnants of its self-respect” by demanding Mr. Mamkootathil’s resignation.
CPI leader Annie Raja said the Congress should “stop sermonising” about upholding women’s rights and dignity and set an example by expelling him from the party and securing his resignation as MLA.
BJP leader K. Surendran said the Congress was protecting Mr. Mamkootathil “out of fear that he will spill the beans on other senior leaders.”
Venugopal denies ‘protection’
In Delhi, AICC general secretary K.C. Venugopal denied that the Congress accorded Mr. Mamkootathil political protection.
“The Congress had suspended him from the party’s primary membership, removed him from the legislative party and also asked him to resign from the post of Youth Congress president,” he said.
Published – November 28, 2025 02:10 pm IST
