Election prospects of Kerala CPM affected

Thiruvananthapuram A shocking claim by Communist Party of India Marxist leader MM Mani that his party had physically eliminated political opponents in the past, is proving to be a boomerang for the party’s prospects in the upcoming assembly by-election in the southern constituency of Neyyattinkara.

Congress leader and federal defence minister AK Antony became the first senior leader on Tuesday to slam the CPM over its claim that it had taken to criminal measures and eliminated political rivals. Campaigning for the United Democratic Front candidate R Selvaraj, Antony said that if the CPM candidate won in Neyyattinkara, it would be tantamount to approval of the Onchiyam incident, in which rebel communist leader TP Chandrasekharan was murdered this month.

“There seem to be some in the CPM who still support Stalinist policies”, Antony said, adding that the Neyyattinkara by-election was an opportunity for their party colleagues to correct them. The former Kerala chief minister said the CPM ought to end its politics of violence, failing which it would lose its credibility and the people would teach the party a lesson.

Meanwhile, the statement last week by CPM Idukki district secretary MM Mani that his party had shot, beaten and stabbed three opponents to death in the 1980s continued to be hotly contested in the state. Mani was slapped with a murder charge for his statement, but it is learnt that his arrest is likely to take some time as expert legal opinion is being sought. Mani himself has stayed out of the limelight after his controversial statement.

On the internet, too, the Mani issue simmered and the debates got hotter after the BBC also carried news of the CPM leader’s shock revelation. In social networking sites the topic has been trending, and some have compared Mani to history’s worst human rights violators, while others have opined that there is a conspiracy to tarnish the image of the CPM.

Local media have reported that the three murders that Mani referred to are those of Congressmen Anchery Baby in November 1982, Mullankuzhy Mathai in January 1983, and Muttukad Nanappan in June 1983. Police are now expected to reopen the crime files in Idukki pertaining to the early 1980s to verify the veracity of Mani’s statement. Mani’s revelation has been particularly hurting for the CPM since some of its officials are in police custody over the recent murder of rebel communist leader TP Chandrasekharan.