The cop who landed CPI(M) in a soup

Police arresting Youth Congress activists during a protest march to the office of the Superintendent of Police in Palakkad on September 04, 2024. The protestors were seeking the resignation of CM Pinarayi Vijayan in the wake of allegations raised by LDF Independent legislator P V. Anvar against M. R. Ajith Kumar, Additional Director General of Police, Law and Order.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

In his first term as Kerala Chief Minister from 2016 to 2021, Pinarayi Vijayan faced scrutiny for the way he helmed the Home Ministry. He drew sharp criticism for police excesses, extrajudicial killings, and the indiscriminate invocation of the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967.

Under fire, the party’s then State secretary, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who served as the Kerala Home Minister in the V.S. Achuthanandan-led Cabinet in the 2006-11 period, was at pains to explain that the arbitrary use of the UAPA by the police violated the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s stated policy. There was bickering within the LDF that a section of the State police was getting ‘saffronised’ and was working to create disaffection with the State government.

But Mr. Vijayan’s focus in his first term was to keep the morale of the police force high, no matter the barrage of charges it faced for rights violations, custodial torture, and general misconduct.

The ghosts of the past have resurfaced now. Halfway through his second term, Mr. Vijayan is under scrutiny once again for a senior police officer’s meeting with top leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The controversy has put the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which is still smarting from the LDF’s crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, in a soup.

It couldn’t have occurred at a more inopportune moment for the party, which has kickstarted branch-level meetings in the run-up to its next State conference and party congress, where an organisational reshuffle is scheduled to take place. Worse, the panchayat elections are just around the corner.

The knives are out in the LDF. The Communist Party of India (CPI), the second-largest constituent of the alliance, has sought a thorough investigation into the ‘secret’ meeting between M.R. Ajith Kumar, additional director general of police (law and order), who is believed to be a close confidant of Mr. Vijayan, and at least two senior RSS leaders.

The Congress alleges that the meetings were held at the behest of Mr. Vijayan to “strike a deal with the RSS,” which resulted in the police “deliberately mishandling” the Thrissur Pooram, a massive annual temple festival, in April. The disruption of the Pooram, the Congress argues, helped the BJP capitalise on the hurt Hindu sentiments to post its first win in a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala.

But the first salvo against Mr. Ajith Kumar was fired by the Left-backed independent legislator, P.V. Anvar, who until recently enjoyed tremendous support from the CPI(M) cadres on social media. While the timing of Mr. Anvar’s attack raised many eyebrows as it coincided with the CPI(M)’s organisational conferences, the allegations, ranging from corruption to criminal deeds, were not just serious but alarming. While a team of officers supervised by the State Police chief was tasked with investigating the allegations, the fact that the Chief Minister allowed Mr. Ajith Kumar to continue to be in charge of law and order led to questions about the veracity of the inquiry and Mr. Vijayan’s probity. The issue has made branch committee meetings of the CPI(M) noisy, with Mr. Vijayan’s silence and perceived inaction coming under fire.

At stake for the party is its avowed posture as the sole credible political counterforce against a rising BJP. That claim has already weakened, as the CPI(M) was forced to sack its central committee member, E.P. Jayarajan, as the convenor of the Left Front after the party made the assessment that his political indiscretion had cost the Left dearly in the Lok Sabha polls. Mr. Jayarajan’s polling day admission of a meeting with BJP Kerala in charge, Prakash Javadekar, and his family’s controversial business ties with a firm run by a BJP leader, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, led to his removal.

In the present case, the moot question is whether the Chief Minister had any inkling about Mr. Ajith Kumar’s meetings with senior RSS leaders such as Dattatreya Hosabale. How did he miss the Special Branch reports on these confabulations? Why would a senior police officer overseeing law and order in a State governed by a Left coalition have private meetings with RSS apparatchiks? These are some of the queries that have been raised by CPI(M) leaders in private, while other LDF constituents and the Opposition have raised them vocally. It is for Mr. Vijayan to clear the air.