Protests against Pinarayi Vijayan during flight

Thiruvananthapuram, June 13:  Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is already facing heat after gold smuggling accused Swapna Suresh accused him and his family of involvement, on Monday faced slogans inside the aircraft he was travelling in from his home town Kannur to the state capital.

TV visuals show two people shouting slogans demanding the resignation of Vijayan.

Incidentally a man is seen pushing them both down and now reports have come that it was the Left Democratic Front convenor E.P. Jayarajan, who was the Industries Minister in the first Vijayan cabinet.

Reports now say that there were three Youth Congress workers who had booked to travel on the same flight and seeing them, local policemen stopped them for questioning and as they said they were going with a cancer patient, they were allowed to proceed.

Meanwhile, Jayarajan said he does not know how the visuals have come out into the public.

"There were two or three people who were totally drunk... is this the way the Congress party behaves? This is the sad state of affairs in the Congress," said Jayarajan and added a probe should take place by the authorities concerned.

However, Kannur airport authorities pointed out that they had done their job and had checked all the passengers who had boarded, thus, refuting Jayarajan's statement that the protesters were drunk.

Vijayan was returning to the state capital after three days of state-wide protests.

As soon as Vijayan came out of the airport here, the youth wing of the CPI-M was present in large numbers at several places on the road raising slogans in his favour. Likewise, members of the youth wing of the Congress and BJP also were present and at a few places, they were seen waving black flags.

At one place the police fired tear gas to disperse the Youth Congress workers and one tera gas shell fell in the compound of a house, where an elderly sick woman lives.

"We were all feeling suffocation because of this and Vijayan has to answer for this," her daughter said.

The police ensured tight security and traffic was stopped. As it was the peak after office hours in the state capital, there were huge traffic snarls at a few places.