Kannur: CPM whistleblower and former Payyannur MLA V Kunhikrishnan took a swipe at senior party leader and former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, a day after Vijayan addressed a political explanation meeting on the party's electoral defeat in Payyannur, one of its traditional strongholds.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Kunhikrishnan accused the CPM leadership of trying to shift the blame for the defeat onto party workers and voters instead of acknowledging the party's own failures.

Drawing a parallel with late party leader K Damodaran, Kunhikrishnan recalled how Damodaran had been asked to defend the police firing on workers protesting for bonus and other rights at the Hindustan Cashew Factory in Chandanathope, Kollam, during the EMS regime in 1957. Kunhikrishnan said Damodaran later refused to justify the firing despite being directed by the party to do so.

Kunhikrishnan said Vijayan, in his Saturday speech, had similarly sought to argue that the party was not responsible for the Payyannur defeat and that the mistakes lay with party workers and voters.

“The overall message of the speeches delivered by Pinarayi Vijayan and his aide K K Ragesh in Payyannur and Mathil was that none of this applies to them; that it was not the party that lost, nor the party candidate, but the people who lost,” he said.

A former member of the CPM Kannur district committee, Kunhikrishnan contested in Payyannur as a UDF-backed independent in the recent election. He had built his campaign around allegations of financial irregularities involving incumbent MLA T I Madhusoodanan. His principal allegations concerned the alleged misappropriation of funds collected for the family of slain CPM worker C V Dhanraj, election funds and money raised for the construction of the party office.

The CPM rejected his allegations and fielded Madhusoodanan again, prompting Kunhikrishnan to contest as an independent. His campaign consequently became a challenge to the functioning of the CPM leadership in Payyannur.

Vijayan had attacked Kunhikrishnan as well in his Saturday speech, accusing him of creating doubts among the public by challenging the party's version of events. He also accused the former party leader of working from within the organisation to weaken it and establish links with its political opponents. “Kunhikrishnan has become the axe in the hands of the party's enemies,” Vijayan said.

Responding to this, Kunhikrishnan said Vijayan was unwilling to accept the verdict of the people and accused the leadership of refusing to acknowledge its mistakes.

Referring to the CPM Central Committee report, Kunhikrishnan said it had specifically pointed to organisational weaknesses, including the arrogance, corruption, nepotism and extravagant lifestyles of leaders. He also pointed out that the report had noted lapses in candidate selection in Payyannur and Taliparamba.

"Whatever faint hope remained after the CPM Central Committee report has now disappeared as well. The party is not ready for any correction, and once it has politically explained that the people were at fault, what correction is there left to make," he asked.

Kunhikrishnan also questioned the party's handling of funds in Payyannur. He claimed that the leadership had acknowledged lapses in the utilisation of funds and delays in submitting the accounts, which he said had to be audited two or three times. He said he had released the details only after auditing the accounts as directed by the party.

He further accused the leadership of placing individual interests above those of the party in its decision to field Madhusoodanan again in Payyannur.

Kunhikrishnan alleged that instead of treating the electoral defeat as a warning and initiating corrective measures, the party leadership was attempting to shift the blame onto voters and party workers.

He also launched a personal attack on Vijayan, referring to the former chief minister's alleged links to the CMRL corruption case. Kunhikrishnan alleged that Vijayan had remained silent on corruption allegations despite what he described as the emergence of evidence and reports.

"Pinarayi Vijayan may have no hesitation in saying that his hands are clean and that he has nothing to hide, despite being involved in the CMRL corruption case, despite being a friend of capitalists, despite turning a movement built by peasant and working-class people into a means for his own financial advancement, and despite refusing to utter a word about corruption even after evidence and reports concerning it have emerged," he said. 

Kunhikrishnan said his allegiance had never been to individual leaders but to communist ideology and truth. He added that he would continue to stand by those principles despite what he described as attempts to threaten or silence him.