It was almost as if Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had disowned former CPM Kannur district secretary P Jayarajan.
On Tuesday, the Opposition levelled the grave charge in the Assembly that Jayarajan was behind the murder of a Muslim League worker in Tanur on October 25. Muslim League leader Dr M K Muneer likened Jayarajan to Jolly of the Koodathayi serial murders, and opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala called him the “agent of death”.
The chief minister spoke not a word about the charges that were brought up against Jayarajan nor did he deem it necessary to even indirectly defend his senior comrade.
Rather he thought it prudent to virtually ask his local leaders to exercise restraint and rein in aggressive elements. “We have managed to bring down political murders. Now it is up to the leadership of all political parties to effectively intervene to prevent any attempts to worsen the situation,” the chief minister said.
When the chief minister, sounding statesmanly, said all sides should introspect on why things had gone out of hand in Tanur, it was a giveaway that he was disappointed with the local leadership of his own party, too.
Jolly of Kerala politics
Muslim League leader Dr M K Muneer, while raising the murder as an adjournment motion in the Assembly, had specifically mentioned the role of Kannur strongman P Jayarajan.
“The countdown to the murder began after P Jayarajan came to the area,” Muneer said, and held up a photograph taken on October 11 that showed the prime accused with Jayarajan and district secretariat member E Jayan. “On October 11 they came together and a few days later, on October 25, Ishaque was killed,” Muneer said.
He said Jayarajan's presence in Tanur during the days leading up to the murder was suspicious. This led to the Jolly connection. “Like Jolly's presence was found in all Koodathayi murders, there was also the presence of a Marxist leader when the killing of Ishaque took place,” Muneer said. Later, he revealed the leader as P Jayarajan.
Pinarayi's selective anger
The chief minister is known to take quick offence to insults hurled at CPM leaders and those close to him. Remember how harshly he came down on the opposition for even mentioning Govindan Master's name in connection with the suicide of non-resident Keralite entrepreneur Sajen Parayil, or how in an earlier occasion he ruthlessly cut to size a man who raised slogans against film actor Mammootty.
But on Tuesday, when the opposition hurled more serious, but uncorroborated, charges against Jayarajan, he remained unmoved.
The chief minister even admitted that some weapons were dug from a plot right in front of district secretary E Jayan's house. It was with Jayan that Jayarajan was photographed a few days before the murder.
Fact is, there is just this photograph taken many days before the murder to even vaguely implicate Jayarajan. Yet, the chief minister let the charges go unopposed. He even readily agreed to constitute a special team to investigate the Tanur murder.
It was then left to Jayarajan to defend himself. In a Facebook post, he said he was in Tanur to attend the marriage in the family of a CPM local committee member. “After the marriage, I had also been to the houses of some bedridden comrades,” he said.
Jayarajan also made it clear that the police were aware of his visit. "This visit was no secret. I am a person with Y-Plus security and all my travels are promptly reported to the police intelligence headquarters," he said. Jayarajan was perhaps hinting that Pinarayi Vijayan, who is also the home minister, had the information.
Cut to size, yet emerges stronger
This is also seen as the intensifying of the ongoing turf war in Kannur CPM. Jayarajan indisputably is the most popular among CPM workers in Kannur, and this has not gone down well with the official faction led by Pinarayi Vijayan. Jayarajan has been gradually stripped of all major party posts.
Picking him as the party's Lok Sabha candidate in Vadakara looked like a smart ploy to keep Jayarajan away from positions of influence within the party. It was while he was Kannur district secretary that Jayarajan was made the candidate. The moment he was removed, the party put in place a new district secretary (M V Jayarajan) in Kannur.
It was as if the party had different rules for Jayarajan. Usually, when a CPM district secretary is asked to contest polls, another leader will be given temporary charge till the results are out. This would mean that if the leader lost the polls he could still get back to his secretary post. This was how the party dealt with Kottayam district secretary V N Vasavan.
Even then, Jayarajan continued to improve his standing among CPM workers in Kannur using the only responsibility he had secured for himself: the patron of the CPM's palliative and welfare care wing in Kannur.
Return of VS ghost
The simmering differences popped out into the open last June when entrepreneur Sajen Parayil committed suicide after the Anthoor municipality, led by the CPM, had refused to grant licence to his convention centre.
It was then said that the municipality was hard on Sajen because he had sought P Jayarajan's help. When this allegation was made inside the Assembly in June, it had deeply bothered Pinarayi Vijayan. He tried to sound very concerned and supportive of Jayarajan to begin with but soon it became very evident that he was irritated that the media, and even certain sections in the party, was trying to position Jayarajan as the next V S Achuthanandan.
“Jayarajan is someone who cannot hold a pen with his hands. All of us eat with our hands. Not Jayarajan. You know why? Just because he happened to be a senior CPM leader he was subjected to the most brutal attack by the RSS,” he said in the Assembly in June. But his mind was revealed soon enough.
“I find there is an attempt to use P Jayarajan to attack the CPM,” he said, and then came the unmistakable reference to his faction war with V S Achuthanandan. “Even before, there were attempts to use certain idols to undermine the CPM. The CPM was not destroyed by such tactics,” he had said.
