On the very day the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) approached the economic offences court against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s daughter Veena Vijayan, the CPM adopted a resolution at its 24th Party Congress in Madurai, resolving to “rally in strength to defend the LDF government in Kerala.”
The CPM will aggressively spread the political line that the Centre is trying to deflect attention from its totalitarian, stifling and anti-federal ways by cooking up corruption cases against party leaders. “To cover up its discrimination, the Union government and its followers are conducting completely false, baseless and malicious propaganda against the state government,” read the CPM resolution that was adopted on April 3 by the 24th Party Congress.
Leaders have got the message. “Kerala is the CPM’s mascot, the governance in this state has also become the party’s ID in national politics. The enduring success of CPM in Kerala, therefore, is the key to our revival in the country,” a senior state committee member said. “Any attempts to discredit the CPM in Kerala by foisting false cases on the Chief Minister and his family will be resisted with all might,” he said.
At this critical juncture, the consensus in the CPM is to stoutly defend Pinarayi Vijayan and to persist with the argument that the BJP, shaken by the success of the Left alternative, is desperate to weaken and destabilise the LDF government by any means possible. The CPM argument is that the BJP will do anything to stop the CPM-led Kerala from emerging as a model for India. The CPM resolution says that the BJP-NDA regime at the Centre wants to prevent the pro-people social and financial outcomes that the policies of the LDF government have assured.
It is now a near certainty that Pinarayi Vijayan will be exempted from the 75 age-limit condition. There were talks that after the Party Congress, he would have to step down from the 17-member Politburo and then would be included as a special invitee. However, it is said that the CPM would retain Pinarayi in the PB as an act of defiance.
The CPM politburo coordinator, Prakash Karat, himself was in the vanguard of the defence. “The SFIO’s political move in the CMRL case will be politically and legally challenged,” Karat said in Madurai on Friday. “The central agency is targeting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan by moving against his family members,” Karat said.
CPM state secretary M V Govindan said in Madurai on Friday that the SFIO move should be subjected to a thorough examination. He said the timing of the SFIO action was enough to establish that this was a politically-motivated move. “The SFIO has staged this drama when a case seeking a stay on the SFIO probe was under the consideration of the Delhi High Court,” he said.
Govindan also sought to detach Veena and Exalogic Solutions from the Chief Minister. “Neither the government nor the Chief Minister had done anything to facilitate the CMRL-Exalogic agreement,” Govindan said. This attempt at distancing was a near admission that certain aspects of the VMRL-Exalogic deal were not above reproach.
Govindan also said that this was a case that was rejected by three vigilance courts. “Till now, no evidence could be unearthed in this case,” he said.
Industries Minister P Rajeev, also in Madurai, said on Friday that Thiruvananthapuram, Muvattupuzha and Kottayam vigilance courts and the Kerala High Court itself had given a clean chit to the Chief Minister and the government. “When their attempts to trap Pinarayi Vijayan failed, they have now taken a case against Veena just because she happened to be the daughter of the Chief Minister,” Rajeev said.
The CPM state secretariat member K K Shailaja said that the SFIO move was nothing but an attempt to somehow rob the shine of the 24th Party Congress. “The ripples of the Party Congress can be felt everywhere in the country. Through this investigation, they are trying to see if something could be done about this (success of the Party Congress),” Shailaja said. She also said that the courts have dismissed the case innumerable times.