Kannur: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) raids linked to the Exalogic Consulting-Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) deal appear to have handed the CPM leadership an opportunity to rally a deeply divided organisation after its crushing defeat in the Assembly election.

The leadership, including Pinarayi Vijayan and party secretary M V Govindan, had been facing mounting anger from the cadre after the election debacle. But now they have come forward describing the ED raids as an attack by the BJP-led Union government, and also “actively encouraged” by the Congress-led UDF government in the state.

Pinarayi led the charge. He came out to address the media and cadres violently protesting outside his rented house at Bakery Junction in Thiruvananthapuram.

“Whenever the enemies of the party tried to prick (us), the party has always extended its wholehearted support. Today, party comrades have once again made it clear that there is no weakening or wavering of that support,” he said. “I congratulate all of you once again. We can face anything. That is our strength. Let us come out together.”

When the ED officials and their CRPF security personnel left Vijayan’s rented house in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday evening, suspected CPM workers attacked the convoy, smashing windshields with bricks. Vijayan did not refer to the violence while addressing the media after the searches. Instead, he accused the Congress and Rahul Gandhi of politically encouraging the ED action.

On Wednesday, standing outside his rented house, Vijayan said: “What was on display today was the emotion of the state and the emotions of the party comrades.”

Vijayan, ignoring the violent attack on the ED vehicles but calling the party workers' actions as emotions, was reminiscent of him describing the brutal assaults on Youth Congress workers in Kannur and Alappuzha by his gunman, police officers and DYFI activists as a “rescue operation” during the Nava Kerala Sadas campaign in 2023, when he was the chief minister.

However, the party leadership is hoping to ride on this emotion to bridge the chasm that has deepened within the organisation after severe setbacks in the polls, including in traditional strongholds such as Kannur, where sections of CPM cadres themselves turned against the leadership. Lower-level committees openly demanded leadership changes and course correction after the defeat.

Vijayan himself was less popular in his Dharmadam constituency, as he trailed in the first six rounds of counting before eventually winning by 19,247 votes, a sharp fall from his 50,123-vote margin in 2021. Party secretary M V Govindan’s wife, P K Shyamala, was defeated in Taliparamba, another CPM bastion held by him.

Now, the CPM leadership is attempting to frame the ED action as a joint political operation by the BJP-led Union government and the Congress-led UDF government in Kerala, because in Kerala, the UDF is its primary electoral rival. The BJP has only three MLAs. The beleaguered LDF has been reduced to 35 MLAs in the 140-member Assembly.

The effect of that call for unity was also visible outside Vijayan’s house at Pandyalamukku in Pinarayi village, where CPM workers and supporters gathered in large numbers from Wednesday morning. Mid-level leaders addressed workers seated in circles outside the house as slogans were raised calling on cadres to “unite” and “make the party stronger”. ED officials had been searching the house since 5.45 am.

Speaking in Thiruvananthapuram, Vijayan said, “I think this inspection will give mental satisfaction to some people, particularly to a person like Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly asked why Pinarayi Vijayan’s house is not being raided and why Pinarayi Vijayan is not being arrested.

“In our country, the BJP government has consistently pursued calculated actions against the Opposition and Opposition leaders. Strong protests have emerged across the country against such actions. But the Congress has taken the position that as long as it is not their leaders, the ED’s high-handedness can continue.

“In any case, we are not going to be finished because of these actions. We see this only as a beginning. There is no need for anyone to nurse the delusion that such actions will paralyse us.”

Other leaders picked up the thread. “It is clear that the Congress leadership actively encouraged the ED to target him, just as they did in the case of Arvind Kejriwal,” said Pinarayi’s lieutenant and Rajya Sabha member John Brittas on X.

Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor countered it by saying, “There is absolutely no evidence in support of your last sentence”. But that is the narrative -- or conspiracy theory -- the CPM is now pushing in Kerala, hoping to contain the revolt against the leadership.

“The ED raids on the houses of CPM Politburo member and former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his family came a day after Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan met Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” alleged V K Sanoj, the DYFI state secretary and Mattannur MLA.

Senior CPM leaders, including K K Shailaja, P Jayarajan and CPM district secretary K K Ragesh, urged party workers to close ranks behind the leadership.

“Such raids cannot destroy the CPM. People will understand the collusion between the Congress and the BJP. Unite to make the CPM stronger,” Shailaja told cadres in a Facebook post.

Ragesh framed the raids as an attempt by the Narendra Modi government to eliminate the Left. “If the intention is to hunt us down, we will build fortresses and resist,” he said.

“The fascist government led by Narendra Modi knows very well that it can survive in India only by eliminating the Left, its principal critic,” he said.

He claimed that four central agencies -- the Income Tax Department, SFIO, ED and the Registrar of Companies -- had investigated the matter over the last two years “without finding any concrete evidence”.

“Yet, raid drama is now being staged in the same case,” he said.

Ragesh also linked the ED action to V D Satheesan’s reported travel to Mangaluru before the swearing-in ceremony. He said, “V D Satheesan’s reported chartered flight trip to Mangaluru, and his alleged secret meeting with a representative of Gautam Adani in the presence of NDA leaders must be viewed seriously.”

In a sign of efforts to bridge internal differences within the party, Bineesh Kodiyeri also visited Vijayan’s house in Thiruvananthapuram to express solidarity. After the election defeat, Bineesh had posted cryptic criticism of the leadership on Facebook, which many in the party interpreted as salvos against Pinarayi and M V Govindan.

“When there is a problem in the family, all should stand together. I have decided to stand together,” Bineesh said.

The party’s attempt to extrapolate the raids into a political attack on the CPM itself, at a time when the leadership was facing criticism over nepotism and electoral setbacks, will test how far the cadre responds to the renewed call for unity.

All in a day
The ED searches began around 5.45 am on Wednesday at 12 locations linked to the case. The conducted searches at the houses of Vijayan in Pinarayi village and in Thiruvananthapuram, MLA P A Mohamed Riyas, husband of Veena Vijayan, in Kozhikode, the Kochi office of CMRL, the residence of its managing director S Sasidharan Kartha, premises linked to his son Saran Kartha, and the Bengaluru office of Exalogic Consulting, owned by Vijayan’s daughter Veena Vijayan alias Veena Thaikandiyil.

The officials were accompanied by CRPF personnel in military-green camouflage. The state police were not in the loop.

Veena Vijayan, who is the third accused in the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) chargesheet, was questioned for around nine hours at her father’s rented residence in Thiruvananthapuram. ED officials simultaneously questioned CMRL executive director Anil Ananda Panicker and Saran Kartha, joint managing director of CMRL and son of the company’s founder S N Sasidharan Kartha.

The searches are linked to allegations that Exalogic Consulting received ₹1.72 crore from CMRL between 2017 and 2020 for software-related services. The transaction first surfaced in documents seized by the Income Tax Department during searches at the Kochi office of CMRL in 2019.

Later, the Income Tax Settlement Board reportedly observed that payments were made to Exalogic despite there being no evidence of services rendered. The matter subsequently led to SFIO proceedings and petitions seeking an ED probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The ED action came a day after the Kerala High Court lifted a stay that had earlier stalled the agency’s investigation. BJP state vice-president Shaun George, who filed the complaint before the ED, said eight cases were filed in the high courts of Kerala, Madras, Delhi and Karnataka to stall the investigation.