Thiruvananthapuram, March 3 (IANS) It was said to be a record moment when Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan won the 2021 Assembly polls, but now things appear to go downhill not only for the CM but for the party too.
All this comes at a time when Kerala remains the last bastion of the CPI(M), and the party got a jolt in Tripura poll results where it has finished third.
At the moment, Vijayan is passing through tough times on account of the revelations of Swapna Suresh, the prime accused in the gold smuggling, and in his pet project ‘Life Mission’ bribery cases.
Vijayan’s right-hand man — his former principal secretary and now retired senior IAS official M. Sivasankar — is presently cooling his heels in jail in the Life Mission bribery case. His another close aide and assistant private secretary C.M. Raveendran has been asked to appear before the Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday, while he did not appear before them on February 27.
Vijayan, who in 2020 put up a brave face when the same Life Mission case surfaced and managed to keep the ED at bay, this time appears little jittery after Swapna provided crucial and clinching evidence of chat messages that she had with Sivasankar and Raveendran.
Vijayan was caught on the wrong foot when he strongly denied having any association with Swapna in the floor of the Assembly, she Swapna challenged him, asking him to arrest her if what she said was false. She went a step ahead saying that she will reveal more shortly about her numerous meetings with Vijayan and his entire family at his official residence and office.
Another huge setback for the CPI(M) came when the convenor of the ruling Left and former State Industries Minister E.P. Jayarajan came under attack from his own senior party colleague. P.Jayarajan, according to widespread media reports, had raised a charge that E.P. Jayarajan has allegedly misused his official post and managed to accumulate huge wealth.
Sensing trouble, the party swung into action and its new party secretary M.V. Govindan brushed aside this and said this was a creation of the media.
But, on Thursday a team of the Income Tax- TDS wing was stayput at the plush Rs 20 crore new ayurveda resort at Kannur, which has E.P. Jayarajan’s wife as the chairperson and their son as a founding director.
Also at the same time the intelligence wing of the ED Kochi office, acting on a complaint from a media professional alleging huge black money has changed hands in the building of the resort, started a probe into this.
Popular political analyst K.C. Umesh Babu, who hails from Kannur — the strongest CPI(M) district in the country — says, “Now the stock statement of the Kerala unit of the CPI(M) is that the Modi government is unleashing national agencies against political rivals. I wish to state that for the BJP, the CPI(M) does not even figure in their list of even a regional party and they are least bothered about the CPI(M). For the CPI(M), their biggest enemy is the CPI(M) itself, as there is total unrest in their leadership, one leader doesn’t like the other,” said Babu.
“We all heard in the media about P.Jayarajan’s allegation against E.P. Jayarajan, but in a few days it was swept under the carpet because those at the helm of affairs in the party know if E.P. Jayarajan will come under scrutiny by the party, then bigger fishes will also come under the scanner and hence things were swept under the carpet, but the question now is how long can this be done,” asked Babu.
With the Assembly in session, CM Vijayan and the CPI(M) have been on constant target of the Congress-led Opposition.
–IANS
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