Violence continues in Payyannur, Taliparamba for second night after polls; opposition homes, offices, vehicles targeted
The same night, the compound wall of a Congress supporter, K P Rekha, was demolished after it was used for graffiti backing Kunhikrishnan at Annoor in Payyannur town.
The same night, the compound wall of a Congress supporter, K P Rekha, was demolished after it was used for graffiti backing Kunhikrishnan at Annoor in Payyannur town.
The same night, the compound wall of a Congress supporter, K P Rekha, was demolished after it was used for graffiti backing Kunhikrishnan at Annoor in Payyannur town.
Kannur: For the second consecutive night after polling, violence continued in Payyannur and Taliparamba, both CPM bastions witnessing high-profile rebellions and prestige contests, with houses, vehicles, compound walls and offices of opposition parties and their supporters coming under attack.
Late on Friday night, a Maruti Alto car belonging to M K Narayanan, a panchayat employee, was set on fire at Mathamangalam in Eramam-Kuttoor panchayat in Payyannur constituency. CPM whistleblower and UDF-backed independent candidate V Kunhikrishnan alleged that the attack was linked to Narayanan’s Facebook posts supporting him ahead of the election.
Narayanan is a leader of the Kerala NGO Union, a CPM-affiliated organisation of non-gazetted government employees. While Narayanan declined to speak to the media, his family said the 2020 model Alto, parked in the shed in front of the house, was set ablaze. Narayanan managed to douse the flames in time after noticing the fire.
Mathamangalam is 20km from Kunhikrishnan's house at Vellur in Payyannur municipality. The incident came a day after the car of T Purushothaman, seen as a backroom strategist for Kunhikrishnan’s campaign, was set on fire at Mahadeva Gramam in Payyannur town on the night of April 9.
The same night, the compound wall of a Congress supporter, K P Rekha, was demolished after it was used for graffiti backing Kunhikrishnan at Annoor in Payyannur town. Kunhikrishnan said the compound wall around his farmland, about 1 km from his house in Vellur, was also demolished in the early hours of Saturday because it carried campaign graffiti in his support. Inside the plot, a poly-greenhouse was set on fire.
“The structure is made of UV-resistant plastic sheets. It doesn’t burn easily; it melts. That’s what happened,” he told Onmanorama.
During the campaign, when Kunhikrishnan had accused the CPM of pressuring landowners to deny him space for an election office, Payyannur MLA T I Madhusoodanan had said that Kunhikrishnan’s candidature was proof of 'political freedom'. In the days after polling, that claim appears to have worn thin.
Kunhikrishnan, a former CPM Kannur district committee member, was expelled from the party after he publicly accused Madhusoodanan of misappropriating funds raised for slain party worker C V Dhanraj’s family and the Payyannur area committee office in 2016, and his own election in 2021. When the party renominated Madhusoodanan as Payyannur candidate, Kunhikrishnan entered the fray as an independent, with the UDF backing him.
IUML, Congress offices vandalised
In Taliparamba constituency, suspected CPM workers targeted the offices of the Congress and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which backed CPM rebel T K Govindan against P K Shyamala, wife of CPM state chief M V Govindan.
T K Govindan, the most senior member of the CPM’s Kannur district secretariat, had quit the party, alleging nepotism in the selection of Shyamala as a candidate in the seat vacated by M V Govindan. Early on Saturday, the IUML office at Mayyil was vandalised, with window panes shattered. A day earlier, on the night of April 9, the Congress mandalam committee office, Gandhi Bhavan, in Mayyil was attacked, and furniture inside was smashed.
“The Congress office named after Mahatma Gandhi was vandalised and resembled a sugarcane field trampled by an elephant,” said KPCC president Sunny Joseph after visiting the site. "The Congress will rebuild this office with public support. If the CPM thinks it can weaken the Congress by destroying an office, it is mistaken," he said.
In Mullakkodi, also in Mayyil panchayat, the house of Bhaskaran, a UDF polling agent, was found vandalised after polling.
IUML appeals for restraint
IUML district president Abdul Kareem Chelari urged the CPM to immediately halt the violence, which he said stemmed from fear of defeat.
“Targeting UDF offices and homes has long been a pattern. Now it is intensifying in constituencies where the party faces internal dissent,” said Chelari, who contested in Azhikode. “The CPM has degenerated to a point where it cannot respond to ideas,” he added.