Thiruvananthapuram: The Left Democratic Front in Kerala, which is hoping to topple the Congress-led United Democratic Front in the forthcoming assembly election suffered a big setback on Thursday when a senior leader lost an anticipatory bail plea in a murder case.

Communist Party of India Marxist leader and the party’s Kannur district secretary, P. Jayarajan was denied anticipatory bail by the Kerala High Court in the Kathiroor Manoj murder case. The court also ruled that the charge against him under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, would stand.

Jayarajan is an accused in the murder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker, E. Manoj in September, 2014 at Kathiroor in Kannur district. Earlier this week, the Central Bureau of Investigation had opposed Jayarajan’s bail application, pointing out to the court that Jayarajan was the “kingpin and mastermind” of the criminal conspiracy hatched to murder Manoj. The CBI also said it had incriminating evidence against the CPM leader.

Jayarajan is the 25th accused in the case, and the CBI had told the court on Wednesday that the CPM leader was prone to using intimidating tactics and threatening law enforcers.

The anticipatory bail plea was rejected by a bench of the high court comprising justices K.T. Sankaran and K.P. Jyotheendranath.

The court observed that being charged under the provisions of UAPA was not related to the number of deaths in a crime. The prosecution had argued that among the accused, only Jayarajan had a personal enmity towards Manoj, and that the first accused in the case, Vikraman was a close associate of Jayarajan.

Among the accused are some CPM functionaries including T.I. Jayarajan, Sunil Kumar and V.P. Sajilesh. The accused face charges that they threw a bomb at the vehicle in which Manoj was travelling towards Thalassery, pulled him out, and hacked him to death.

Jayarajan’ counsel argued that there had been no proof to incriminate Jayarajan until recently, and that the CBI’s decision to include him as an accused in the backdrop of the assembly election was a politically-motivated move. The court, however, dismissed the argument.

The development is a considerable setback of the Left parties which have been hopeful of using the solar and bar scams to upstage the ruling UDF in the election campaign.