Who wants to please Sangh Parivar more; CPM and Congress fight it out in the streets

"What had hurt you the most will also hurt your opponent badly" is a quote attributed to the legendary Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. It is not certain whether the author of 'The Art of War' had actually delivered such an aphorism, but the CPM has made the line the heart of its post-debacle strategy.

During the run-up to the Assembly polls, the Congress had intensified its attack on the CPM for its alleged subservience to the Sangh Parivar. At one point, the Congress even renamed the CPM as CJP for Communist Janata Party. The election results showed that such a line of attack had near-fatally wounded the CPM. Now it is the CPM's turn to use the weapon that decimated it against the Congress.

Certain developments made it easy for the CPM to pick up the same weapon. Particularly, the eagerness of Chief Minister V D Satheesan to implement the PM-SHRI. The CPM also held up the UDF's decision to allow two non-Muslim members in the restructured Waqf Board as another instance of the Congress's eagerness to please the Sangh Parivar. The UDF was also ridiculed for not questioning the various vice chancellor appointments made by "the RSS Governor" Rajendra Arlekar. Satheesan, in general, was sketched as a leader reluctant to utter a word against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, this narrative could not be sustained after the Youth Congress workers staged an audacious black flag demonstration against visiting Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Kollam on September 26. Soon, the BJP and its feeder organisations launched retaliatory attacks against the Congress; protest marches were taken out and Congress offices were vandalised and torched. All of a sudden, it looked like a Congress-BJP battle. The CPM looked like a mere spectator.

And then, mysteriously, the Congress decided to demonstrate what looked like administrative propriety or it could have been excessive caution, or even a chickening out of the fight against the BJP. The CPM was back in the game.

Sports minister O J Janeesh, who is also the Youth Congress president, abruptly pulled down a Facebook video of the black flag protest of his own organisation. The CPM said that the Chief Minister beholden to the BJP had forced Janeesh to remove the post.

Just when the CPM thought that the Congress was back to a certain pattern of behaviour it can conveniently term 'pro-BJP', the Youth Congress sprang a surprise. It staged a torch-lit procession against CEC Gyanesh Kumar on September 30. Usually, it is the CPM and its youth wings that are quick to stage such protests. This time, the Youth Congress beat them to it.

It was this evening march of the Youth Congress that culminated in a prolonged street fight between the Youth Congress and the SFI, and the resultant police action inside the University College. And on Thursday, in a series of retaliatory moves, SFI and DYFI workers ambushed the sports minister at various points during his travels in Kannur and Kasaragod.

The Chief Minister was quick to point out the hypocrisy and revive his old allegation of the CPM's BJP allegiance. "For what reason was minister Janeesh, who is also the Youth Congress president, attacked? Was it the march he led against CEC Gyanesh Kumar and the Central government that provoked you," the CM said in a Facebook video. He also wanted to know whether the BJP and the CPM were in a joint operation against a State Government that was engaged in an ideological fight against the Centre.

The CPM is now desperate to shake off the perception that it was attempting to subvert an anti-BJP protest conducted by the Youth Congress. "The Youth Congress staged a farce of a protest (on September 30) to make up for the embarrassment the minister suffered on account of the removal of the black flag protest video," Opposition Leader Pinarayi Vijayan said in a Facebook post on Thursday.

He wanted to persuade that the Youth Congress workers had thrown lit torches into the hostel without even a sigh of provocation from the SFI. "The power cut began in the area (University hostel) when the Youth Congress protests began. The University College students were only protesting against the power restrictions. Is it the Youth Congress policy to physically take on those who protest against the power crisis? If so, it can only be seen as a challenge to the people of Kerala who are angered by the return of power cuts that were unheard of in the state for a decade," Pinarayi said.

The former Chief Minister even described the Youth Congress protest as yet another proof of the Congress's soft attitude towards the Sangh Parivar. "Abandoning the protest march against the CEC midway and attacking the SFI will in no way provoke the Sangh Parivar. It only proves once again that the UDF is desperate to gratify the BJP," Pinarayi said.