Kannur: Is P P Divya, Kannur’s firebrand leader and former district panchayat president, preparing to part ways with the CPM? In a lengthy but cryptic Facebook post, she spoke about the need to let go of things that once offered support but have since become a burden. The post has fuelled speculation, with a top BJP leader saying the party’s doors are open to her, but that she must make her stance clear.

A rising face in the party, Divya was demoted from the CPM Kannur district committee to a branch committee in November 2024 after she was booked and arrested for allegedly abetting the suicide of Kannur Additional District Magistrate K Naveen Babu. Before that, she had been asked to step down as district panchayat president after Naveen Babu’s death on October 15, 2024, triggered a massive backlash.

Nearly two years after the incident, she is still not in the reckoning. She was not considered in the party’s recently concluded extended district committee either.

Against this backdrop, Divya (41) wrote on her Facebook page on Thursday, October 22: “Not everything that once seemed right to us has to remain right forever. There are things we must be grateful for… and things we must lovingly let go.” She added: “What I share here is not merely a collection of imaginary tales.”

Divya began her post by recounting a story attributed to the Buddha about a man who builds a raft to cross a river. After reaching the other bank safely, the man, grateful to the raft for saving him, decides to carry it on his head rather than leave it behind.

“We need not carry throughout our lives the raft that helped us cross from one shore to another. Letting it go is not ingratitude; it is recognising the lesson life has taught us,” she wrote.

Divya rose through the party’s student and youth organisations before securing a place in its district leadership. She was first elected to the Kannur District Panchayat in 2010, at the age of 25. She won again in 2015 from Kadannappally and was fielded for a third consecutive term in 2020 from Kalliassery, a move that reflected the party’s confidence in her. She went on to become the district panchayat president.

But her rise stalled after she became embroiled in the controversy surrounding the ADM’s death. She gatecrashed his farewell meeting at the Kannur Collectorate and made pointed remarks suggesting that he was a corrupt official. The ADM, who was due to board a train to Chengannur that night, took his own life in his quarters.

Her latest post has triggered widespread speculation in Kannur.

At a press conference in Kannur on Thursday, BJP national executive member P K Krishnadas said his party’s doors were open to leaders and workers from both fronts when asked about Divya. But he added that she should make her stance clear. “Let them make their stand clear. Half-hearted consent is not enough,” he said.