[ad_1]
A five-year-old high-profile act of political violence that claimed the life of Youth Congress activist P.V. Suhaib in Kannur has come to occupy the centre stage in the Opposition’s current narrative about the Communist Party of India (Marxist)‘s allegedly tacit encouragement of “targeted brutality” against “peaceful adversaries”.
The Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have seized on a Facebook post by Akash Thillenkeri, the prime suspect in the 2018 murder, to assail the CPI(M). Mr. Thillenkeri seeks to implicate the CPI(M)‘s Kannur leadership in the crime. The CPI(M) had expelled Mr. Thillenkeri, an alleged habitual offender, in the aftermath of the crime. He later emerged as one of the party’s fiercest critics in its Kannur stronghold, incrementally gaining a larger-than-life social and mainstream media profile.
Nevertheless, it seems not to augur well for the CPI(M)‘s public image that the controversial FB post emerged close on the heels of the Enforcement Directorate’s arrest of M. Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, on the charge of laundering illicit proceeds from the LIFE Mission corruption case. Soon, Swapna Suresh, an accused in the case, who later worked briefly for a supposedly Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed tribal welfare organisation, attempted to implicate Mr. Vijayan and his family in the case.
The Opposition has clubbed both developments to put the government in the dock. Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran say it is now evident why the government opposed an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into Suhaib’s murder.
They allege that the CPI(M) lords over a criminal empire that extends to smuggling and big-ticket governmental corruption. They would highlight the CPI(M)‘s embrace of homicidal street-fighting groups to turn public opinion against the governing party.
BJP State president K. Surendran says the CPI(M)-controlled police give cover to party criminals and the CPI(M) “assassin’s” revelations merely touch the surface of the “rot”.
CPI(M) Kannur district secretary M. V. Jayarajan denies the charges vehemently and demands the police investigate the accuser’s claim. The party remains staunchly committed to the principle that politics, however contentious, should stay in the ambit of democracy and civic discourse, he adds.
[ad_2]
Source link
