CPM attacks on poll rivals on the rise

As the State is
preparing to go to polls on April 16, the Kerala CPI(M) has stepped up
attacks and threats against political enemies. At last four incidents
of attacks and blockades on rival candidates and campaigners by
suspected CPI(M) activists took place in Kerala even as fears mounted
about possibility of violence during the coming days, especially in the
Marxist heartland of Kannur.

TP Chandrasekharan and P Jayakumar,
CPI(M) rebels contesting under the banner of Left Coordination
Committee in Vadakara and Attingal Lok Sabha constituencies were
blocked on way on Saturday, while the vehicle of AP Abdullakkutty MP,
expelled recently from the CPI(M), came under attack on Thursday night.
The house of former minister Cherkalam Abdullah, who was also the
Kasaragod district president of the Muslim League, also came under
attack on Friday.

Chandrasekharan, leader of the Marxist
Party, which the expelled CPI(M) rebels formed to take on that party,
was blocked on the road in Thalassery Assembly segment of the Vadakara
constituency on Saturday. Left Coordination Committee sources said that
about 40 CPI(M) workers blocked Chandrasekharan while he was on a
campaign tour.

The trouble-makers destroyed the boards of the
candidate mounted on the vehicle and torn away the flags on it. An
attempt was also made to manhandle the candidate but timely
intervention by his colleagues foiled this. Chandrasekharan was the
mightiest leader of the CPI(M) rebels in north Malabar.

Thalassery,
known as a Marxist fortress for its rule by terror for more than the
past three decades, was being represented in the State Assembly by Home
Minister and Polit Bureau member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, famous for his
reported statement that the CPI(M) would even make bombs in police
stations if need be.

Chandrasekharan’s colleagues said the
attack was aimed at intimidating him and forcing him to withdraw from
active campaigning as he was sure to cause a big dent and even the
defeat of P Satheedevi, CPI(M) candidate in Vadakara. The rebels led by
Chandrasekharan in Vadakara was believed to poll a minimum of 50,000
votes, which could lead to the defeat of the Marxist aspirant, as the
Janata Dal (S) also was campaigning against her.

Satheedevi, who
had bagged the highest majority of 130,589 votes in Kerala in the 2004
elections from Vadakara, was the sister of P Jayarajan, MLA from
Koothuparamba in Kannur, sharing the status of Thalassery as a Marxist
terror centre. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had time and again
alleged that Jayarajan was one of the terror architects of Kannur
CPI(M).

The vehicle of Left Coordination Committee candidate in
Attingal constituency at Vattappara was attacked when he was on a
campaign tour on Saturday. His colleagues said the attack was
perpetrated by CPI(M) workers as part of a tactic to force him to
withdraw from campaigning as the Marxists wanted to win that seat at
any cost. A CPI(M) State secretariat meeting earlier in the week had
identified Attingal as one of the five seats the party was sure to win
out of the 14 it was contesting in the State.

The car of
Abdullakkutty, sitting MP from Kannur, came under stoning while he was
returning from a UDF election meeting on Thursday. Abdullakkutty, after
his recent expulsion from the CPI(M) for praising the development model
of Narendra Modi, had been campaigning for the United Democratic Front
candidates.

The MP also received a death threat over the phone
on Saturday while he was speaking at a United Democratic Front election
meeting in Ernakulam. The caller did not identify himself but
threatened Abdullakkutty saying his head would be chopped off if he
appeared in Mattannur, Kannur, to campaign for the UDF.

Meanwhile,
former minister and Muslim League leader Cherkalam Abdullah refused to
lodge a complaint with the police for an attack on his house in
Kasaragod on early Friday morning. The police registered a case suo
moto. Abdullah said he did not want to file a complaint because the LDF
Government’s police had not taken any action on the complaint he lodged
when his house was attacked sometime ago.