The Kerala Police on Monday arrested 22 CPI (M) activists and registered cases against 1,000 people including senior Marxist leaders on charges including attempt to murder over Sunday’s attack in Kannur on Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. The Chief Minister, who suffered minor injuries in the attack, was admitted to hospital in Thiruvananthapuram.
Those arrested included local CPI (M) leaders of Kannur and those against whom cases were registered reportedly included former Marxist Minister PK Sreemathi, MlAs C Krishnan and KK Narayanan and CPI (M)’s Kannur district secretary P Jayarajan. Several would face charges of unlawful Assembly, disruption of official duty and destruction of public property also.
The CPI (M) has taken a position that it had no role in the attack but the trouble-makers were Congress activists who had infiltrated into the CPI (M) agitation against him over the infamous solar scam. “It would be better if the Government and police abstained from the move to hunt down CPI (M) men for this,” warned State CPI (M) secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.
After doctors advised Chandy to take rest for three days, he was admitted to the Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram late Sunday night. Senior Congress leader and Cultural Affairs Minister KC Joseph claimed that the injury in Chandy’s chest was caused not by a glass shard from the windshield but by a heavy stone hurled by CPI(M) men.
State Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan refused permission for Pinarayi and CPI(M) Politbureau member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan to meet Chandy in the hospital citing possibilities of trouble from the part of Congress workers while Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan visited the Chief Minister on Monday morning.
The Chief Minister’s vehicle came under heavy stone-pelting, allegedly by CPI(M) men, on Sunday evening at the police grounds in Kannur when he reached there to take part in a function associated with an athletic meet. Chandy suffered injuries in his chest and forehead after the windscreens of his car got smashed in stone-pelting.
Hundreds of CPI(M) men had gathered there as part of the “siege” the party had announced against him demanding his resignation over the solar scam but Pinarayi claimed that neither the CPI(M) nor the lDF it led had anything to do with the attack. “Instead of showing eagerness to arrest our men the police should first investigate the matter,” he said in Thiruvananthapuram.
“The ultimate beneficiary of this incident is unmistakably the Chief Minister who was standing isolated till Sunday evening because of the many scandals — solar scam, land deals by his former gunman Salim Raj, gold smuggling through airports, etc. Why should we save him from his isolation by creating an incident that could set off a sympathy wave for himIJ” asked Pinarayi.
local CPI(M) leadership in Kannur alleged that those the people who had attacked Chandy were hired hoodlums brought from Chalakudy in Thrissur district. An lDF meeting in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday evening reiterated its resolve to continue its agitation over the solar scam.
However, Achuthanandan, Pinarayi’s fiercest foe in the CPI(M), said the attack on the Chief Minister was unjustifiable while the CPI condemned the attack saying it had caused disrepute to the left. Achuthanandan had taken a similar stand when Marxist rebel TP Chandrasekharan of Onchiyam, Kozhikode was hacked to death in May, 2012, allegedly by a Marxist killer gang.
Meanwhile, observers feel that the attack on Chandy, which occurred just when he was standing beleaguered by direct allegations against him at least in two infamous scandals, would help him refurbish his image. “The incident occurred just when Chandy was searching for a way out of the trap of scams,” said a senior leader belonging to the anti-Chandy group in the Congress.