In what is being described as an indication of fissures starting to appear in the CPI(M) district unit in Kannur, termed often as the impregnable Marxist fortress of Kerala, district secretary P Jayarajan has come under fire from the party leadership for his alleged efforts to grow above the organisation through self-glorification using campaign materials like music-video albums.
The charge against Jayarajan, supreme commander of the CPI(M)’s strongest district unit in entire India, came up at a meeting of the party State committee last weekend. The district secretary, whom the RSS-BJP views as the chief architect and fountainhead of the CPI(M)’s politics of violence in Kannur, had reportedly walked out of the meeting in protest but both the party and Jayarajan denied this.
Jayarajan is accused of making efforts to enhance his popularity by hoisting display boards across Kannur district and producing and publicising a life-sketch documentary in the form a video music album full of songs filled with revolutionary fervor that praised him as the “flowering tree of goodness”, “star of Kannur”, etc.
The State committee has also reportedly decided to report its criticism of Jayarajan in all the units – area, local and branch committees – under the Kannur district unit of the CPI(M). KK Ragesh MP, a young CPI(M) leader from Kannur district, also came under sharp criticism in the State committee for overseeing the production of the album aimed at boosting Jayarajan’s image.
Jayarajan admitted that he had come under criticisms in the State committee. “It is the party which nurtured me. Therefore, it has the right to criticise me. I will consider the observations in the spirit of self-criticism and accept the appropriate criticisms. The party does not have a different set of policies for Kannur.” He rejected reports on walkout from State committee.
On Monday, the State secretariat of the CPI(M) said the party had not taken any action against Jayarajan. Criticisms and self-criticisms were quite natural in the party but a section of the media was publishing distorted versions of such things, it said.
Most top CPI(M) leaders in the State, including the State secretary and Chief Minister, hail from Kannur district.
The music album, produced by Pradeep Kadayapram under the banner of the party-controlled Grameena Kalavedi of Purachery North in Kannur, presents Jayarajan as the unquestioned people’s leader of Kannur. It glorifies Jayarajan as a great revolutionary who “would never waver before the daggers of the oracles of communalism”.
The RSS-BJP, in perpetual war with the CPI(M) in Kannur, views P Jayarajan as the architect of some of the gruesome Marxist attacks in the district in which scores of Sangh Pariwar activists have lost lives in this millennium itself. “This cannot be seen as any positive development. We can’t expect the CPI(M) to abandon violence all of a sudden,” said a BJP leader in Kannur.
A strong supporter of Jayarajan in Koothuparambu, Kannur said Jayarajan did not deserve such criticisms. “He is a comrade who always leads from the front and he is not like some others in the party who make their appearance during the “harvest” (elections). He has proved that he is even ready to sacrifice his life for the party,” he said.
Observers are of the opinion that the party’s move to report the observation at its committees in the district is equal to – “or worse than” – a disciplinary action considering the status Jayarajan enjoys in Kannur. “It can be a move to rein in Jayarajan. They don’t want him to become larger than the party,” said a senior journalist in Kannur.
A Kochi-based former CPI(M) theorist said that the State committee’s move could be based on the liberalist policies allegedly being pursued by Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who also hails from Kannur. His Government – and therefore party State committee – wants changes to happen in the style of functioning of the Kannur unit, he opined.
“If the reports that the State committee’s decision was based on a recommendation from the State secretariat are true, it is a very serious development. It seems that some forces are determined to clip Jayarajan’s wings. The goal may be to bring in some big changes to the structure and operations of the party in Kannur,” the former theorist said.