Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s volte-face on the issue of the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) takeover of the probe into the alleged Maoist links of Alan Shuhaib, 20, and Thaha Fazal, 24 , Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) workers at Pantheerankavu in Kozhikode, may be unanticipated. But it is symptomatic of the paradoxical situation confronting the CPI(M) and the party-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government Mr. Vijayan is heading, in the aftermath of the arrest of the two youths under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) on November 1.
Mr. Vijayan’s announcement in the Assembly on February 5 that he wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to hand over the ongoing NIA investigation against the two youths is a reversal of what he had said in the Assembly a day before. On February 4, an agitated Mr. Vijayan had asked in the Assembly whether he should entreat Mr. Shah to get the case back from the NIA.
On the defensive
The CPI(M) has been on the defensive ever since the arrest of the two youths under the UAPA, which the party officially calls draconian, even as the Chief Minister, who is holding the Home portfolio, defended the police probe into the case. Even when the party leadership was critical of the registration of the case against the duo under the UAPA, Mr. Vijayan defended the police and named the arrested as Maoists. According to the State police, the duo were actually activists of the banned CPI (Maoist). Mr. Vijayan was seen as taking a huge political risk then as he had drawn flak from not only the Opposition but also from the Communist Party of India (CPI), a major alliance partner in the LDF.
The Chief Minister’s U-turn on the NIA probe into the case could be an act of political expediency in the face of the Opposition’s aggressive stand that it was invocation of the UAPA charges against the youths that allowed the NIA to take over the probe from the State Police. Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala’s visit to the families of the two youths — hailing from the Muslim community — on January 21 was seen as a game changer. CPI(M) district secretary P. Mohanan had to come out two days after Mr. Chennithala’s visit that the arrested youths were still members of the party.
Taking sting out
The Chief Minister’s letter to Mr. Shah will be construed as an effort to take the sting out of the Opposition’s charge that his stand on the UAPA was not as vigorous as his opposition to the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, which he strongly condemns as discriminatory.
