Kerala CPM humours terror suspect Madani

 A new season of extremist-wooing has begun in Kerala’s minorities-based politics as major parties have started preparing for the next Lok Sabha election. In the forefront of this hunt for Muslim votes is the CPI(M). It has already put to work a strategy for attracting the sections that sympathise with Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Madani, lodged presently in a Karnataka prison as a key accused in the 2008 Bangalore bombings case. The party and the LDF it is leading had suffered — the CPI(M)’s central leadership itself had admitted this — shocking setback in the 2009 Lok Sabha election due to its open but informal alliance with Madani’s PDP. Still, it has failed to force the Marxists to do a reality check. The observation was that the friendship the neo-liberalist CPI(M) leadership had forged with Madani despite objections from a section within the party  and from the other LDF constituents had enraged the Marxists’ moderate Muslim supporters and their well-wishers in the majority community, leading to a near-rout in the Lok Sabha election in Kerala. It should be noted that the neo-liberalists, headed by State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan who had shared a stage with Madani himself during the poll campaign, had not even once expressed remorse over that unholy alliance — but they had abandoned it, practically. They are now trying to renew that friendship by joining the PDP campaign to pressure the Karnataka Government into providing better treatment and other facilities to Madani. The Marxists say this is being done out of humanitarian considerations. They are not the only ones who are making that claim. Sensing that the Marxist move could affect its interests in the Muslim-majority Malappuram district and other constituencies where Muslims are in decisive numbers, the Muslim League, the second largest constituent of the Congress-led ruling UDF, has embarked on a similar bid. The League  has asked its Government to consider taking up the Madani issue seriously.
 
Back in March, 2006, all parties with representation in the Kerala Assembly, had joined hands to unanimously pass a resolution in the House demanding release of Madani from the Coimbatore prison where he was then lodged in connection with the Coimbatore serial blasts case in which 58 people were killed. When Madani was released from jail a year later, top Marxist leaders had proved their loyalty to him by attending a reception accorded to him. There are strong indications that the Madani issue could be taken up at the Assembly-Government level once again, considering the passion with which the Marxists and the Muslim League are speaking of the need to show humanitarian consideration to the Islamist leader. The parties could be doing all this to achieve their short-term vote-bank goals but the ultimate result is that all this could embolden the extremists to feel self-righteous and mount further attacks on the nation.

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