The CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) is battling the demons of E P Jayarajan’s perceived overtures to join the BJP, with politburo member and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan himself admonishing the LDF convenor, and that too on voting day itself. This is considered a double whammy after EP’s earlier admission that BJP state-in-charge Prakash Javedkar had met him, putting the ruling dispensation in a fix.
After CPI state secretary Binoy Viswam also termed EP’s move as inappropriate, it remains to be seen how long the CPM leader would be able to cling on to the LDF convenor’s post. The CPI is the second largest constituent in the ruling LDF in Kerala. Pinarayi, a stickler to CPM’s organisational moorings, was seen as little bothered about his party’s scheme of things when he publicly aired his disenchantment with EP Jayarajan’s conduct when polling was on.
Normally, within the organisational framework of the CPM, once a charge arises against a leader, the concerned committee takes stock of the situation and offers a response. A patient hearing is also given to the party leader. This has been given a go-by in EP’s case by none other than Pinarai himself. There was no discussion within the party in this instance, and Pinarayi himself slammed the controversial move by EP.
The talk doing the rounds now is that after EP locked horns with the CPM leadership and made secret overtures to the saffron camp at that juncture by succumbing to temptations, Pinarayi himself had admonished his party colleague from Kannur on that count. When such a controversy again propped up on the eve of voting, Pinarayi himself would have decided not to exercise restraint any more in the case of Jayarajan.
But the opposition has a different take on the entire drama. The opposition UDF thinks that as an adverse poll outcome became evident for the LDF, the CM shrewdly opted to embrace such a strategy that would pin all the blame on a possible LDF debacle on E P Jayarajan.
EP’s explanation that Javedkar, who was passing by, just happened to step in to meet him, has not gone down well with the party cadres also. They are also enraged as to why a senior leader, who is also a central committee member of the party, put the CPM in a fix on voting day itself.
CM Pinarayi had once warned EP about his alleged friendship with controversial ‘broker Nandakumar’. When the SNC Lavlin controversy was at its peak, Nandakumar was a key operator in the VS camp and hence is inimical to Pinarayi.
Pinarayi had also censured EP for his business links with Santiago Martin when Jayarajan was the general manager of Deshabhimani, the party mouthpiece.
Jayarajan’s Vaidekam resort’s contractual links with BJP leader and union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar and the LDF’s convenor’s statement that the main contest in some seats in Kerala was between the LDF and the BJP, had also been used as a political tool by the UDF to nail the LDF and the CPM.
The chief minister’s public outbursts have done immense harm to EP politically. Some see EP himself stepping down from the LDF convenor’s post without the CPM asking him to do so. That is the fresh crisis that the CPM is battling in the state now.
