The cop who landed CPI(M) in a soup in Kerala Premium

A senior police officer’s meeting with RSS leaders has put Pinarayi in a tight spot

In his first term as Kerala Chief Minister from 2016 to 2021, Pinarayi Vijayan faced scrutiny for the way he helmed the Home Ministry. He drew sharp criticism for police excesses, extrajudicial killings, and the indiscriminate invocation of the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967.

Under fire, the party’s then State secretary, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who served as the Kerala Home Minister in the V.S. Achuthanandan-led Cabinet in the 2006-11 period, was at pains to explain that the arbitrary use of the UAPA by the police violated the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s stated policy. There was bickering within the LDF that a section of the State police was getting ‘saffronised’ and was working to create disaffection with the State government.

But Mr. Vijayan’s focus in his first term was to keep the morale of the police force high, no matter the barrage of charges it faced for rights violations, custodial torture, and general misconduct.

The ghosts of the past have resurfaced now. Halfway through his second term, Mr. Vijayan is under scrutiny once again for a senior police officer’s meeting with top leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The controversy has put the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which is still smarting from the LDF’s crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, in a soup.

It couldn’t have occurred at a more inopportune moment for the party, which has kickstarted branch-level meetings in the run-up to its next State conference and party congress, where an organisational reshuffle is scheduled to take place. Worse, the panchayat elections are just around the corner.

The knives are out in the LDF. The Communist Party of India (CPI), the second-largest constituent of the alliance, has sought a thorough investigation into the ‘secret’ meeting between M.R. Ajith Kumar, additional director general of police (law and order), who is believed to be a close confidant of Mr. Vijayan, and at least two senior RSS leaders.

The Congress alleges that the meetings were held at the behest of Mr. Vijayan to “strike a deal with the RSS,” which resulted in the police “deliberately mishandling” the Thrissur Pooram, a massive annual temple festival, in April. The disruption of the Pooram, the Congress argues, helped the BJP capitalise on the hurt Hindu sentiments to post its first win in a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala.