The decision of the State government to probe the disclosure of Congress leader K. Sudhakaran’s former aide that the MP had plotted the murder of Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader E.P. Jayarajan is seen here as a quick move to deny the CPI(M) any ground to allege ‘discrimination’ in ordering investigation into political murders of the past.
The decision announced by Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan to constitute a special police team to probe charges against Mr. Sudhakaran will repel the CPI(M) leadership’s allegation that the Congress-led government is not taking the disclosure against the MP as seriously as it had taken the revelations by former CPI(M) district secretary M.M. Mani on the murders of Congress workers in Idukki.
The decision is viewed as a move to deprive the CPI(M) a campaign plank to portray itself as a victim. The party is now facing an unpleasant situation in the backdrop of arrests of its leaders in connection with the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T.P. Chandrasekharan; National Development Front worker Muhammad Fazal; and Indian Union Muslim League activist Abdul Shukkoor.
While the CPI(M) leadership wasted no time in demanding a probe against Mr. Sudhakaran in the wake of the disclosure by Prashanth Babu, his former driver and ex-councillor of Kannur municipality, the Congress leader was also quick to state his willingness to face any inquiry.
“I myself had demanded the Home Minister to order an investigation,” Mr. Sudhakaran told The Hindu on Sunday when asked about the decision to constitute a probe team. He said that he had not been part of any conspiracy to kill a political adversary.
Other cases
Mr. Babu had disclosed to a TV channel on June 30 that the Congress leader had been conspired to kill Mr. Jayarajan (The CPI(M) leader was shot at in a running train in Andhra Pradesh in 1996). He had also alleged that Mr. Sudhakaran had a role in the attack on the CPI(M)-controlled Co-operative Press and Savoury Hotel here in June 1992 in which a hotel worker was killed. He alleged that Congress workers, including him, were termed accused in attack cases on the basis of a proxy list given by Mr. Sudhakaran to the police.
The police sources here said that the district police was yet to get any formal information on the probe order. The police have provided two gunmen to Mr. Babu following instructions from higher-ups.
While the Congress leadership here has alleged that Mr. Babu’s revelation was at the behest of the CPI(M), it has turned the spotlight on the gory days of political violence that the district had witnessed in the 1990s when Mr. Sudhakaran was elected president of the District Congress Committee (DCC).
Former DCC president P. Ramakrishnan, a rival of Mr. Sudhakaran, had alleged in October last that Communist Marxist Party leader and then Co-operation Minister M.V. Raghavan had visited Koothuparamba on November 25, 1994, under persuasion from Mr. Sudhakaran in defiance of police warnings. It was the police firing at Koothuparamba, in which five Democratic Youth Federation of India workers had been killed, that worsened the volatile political situation in the district, Mr. Ramakrishnan had alleged then.
