High-level department enquiry on into Kerala ADGP’s ‘secret meetings’ with RSS leadership

Top-level departmental enquiry into Kerala ADGP's alleged secret meetings with RSS leadership sparks political controversy and investigations.

A top-level departmental enquiry was under way into Kerala’s Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Law and Order, M.R. Ajith Kumar’s alleged “under-the-wraps meeting” with the top Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leadership. 

A police team headed by State Police Chief (SPC) Sheikh Darvesh Sahib issued a notice last week to one Jayakumar, an RSS worker who allegedly accompanied the ranking officer to the purported secret meetings in Thrissur and later at Kovalam in Thiruvananthapuram in 2023. 

The alleged secret encounters had caught the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) in the centre of a stormy political controversy.

Both the Congress and the Communist Party of India (CPI) linked the alleged meeting to the Thrissur Pooram disruption, which they claimed triggered a wave of Hindu resentment that swept the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Suresh Gopi to victory in the 2024 Thrissur Lok Sabha elections. 

The CPI expressed extreme displeasure about Mr. Ajith Kumar’s continuation in office publicly and also in the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF). It said the “RSS-ADGP” meeting contravened the LDF’s policy and stoked public scepticism about the Kerala government’s secular stance.

Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan had stirred the pot by airing the politically touchy accusation against Mr. Ajith Kumar in early September.

He dared the government to deny the charge and sue him for libel. Neither the government nor Mr. Ajith Kumar has rebutted Mr. Satheesan’s charge.