Special additional sessions judge R Narayana Pisharody has found 12 people, including the seven-member killer gang and three CPI(M) leaders guilty . The Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader was brutally killed at Vallikkad near Onchiyam on May 4, 2012. The shocking murder had traumatized the state, and plunged the CPI(M) into a major crisis.

The CPI(M) is trying to draw comfort from the acquittal of Kozhikode district committee member P. Mohanan. But that is cold comfort for the party. In fact, state CPI(M) secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has made the astounding claim that with the acquittal of Mohanan, the party has been fully exonerated of the charge of hatching a political conspiracy to murder the RMP leader!

The claim flies in the face of facts. True, Mohanan, a senior party leader close to Vijayan has been acquitted. But three other CPI(M) leaders – Panur area committee member P K Kunhanandan, Kunnummukkara local committee member K C Ramachandran and former Kadungampoyil branch secretary Manojan - have been found guilty of criminal conspiracy. That blows to smithereens the CPI(M)’s claim of no role in the murder.

In fact, the most significant aspect of the verdict is that, for the first time in the history of Kerala, and perhaps in the country, the political conspiracy angle has been proved – a charge which is very difficulty to prove in the normal circumstances. Remember, even in the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case, the criminal conspiracy charge could not be proved. And that resulted in Savarkar being set free. This being the reality, the Kerala CPI(M) will find it extremely hard to explain the conviction of three of its local leaders on the charge of conspiracy for murder.

That the CPI(M) is heading for trouble is clear from the reaction of leader of the opposition V S Achuthanandan. VS has again differed from the official party line on the murder issue by demanding, albeit indirectly, that the CPI(M) leaders convicted in the murder case should have no place in the party. In this matter, VS said he was with party general secretary Prakash Karat who had stated that if the involvement of any CPI(M) leader was proved, he would have no place in the party. VS stance would put both Vijayan and Karat under severe pressure to expel the convicted party leaders from the party. Failure to do so would strengthen the position of VS who had been keeping a low profile ever since the verdict favouring Vijayan in the SNC Lavalin case.

Not only that. Achuthanandan has gone one step ahead, deepening the discomfiture of the CPI(M) leadership, the veteran has fully supported the demand of K. K. Rema, wife of the slain RMP leader Chandrashekharan, for a CBI inquiry into the conspiracy angle. RMP leaders believe that the police had abruptly ended the probe after the arrest of P. Mohanan. The party is of the view that the conspiracy to murder Chandrashekharan originated from the state CPI(M) leadership – a perception widely prevalent among the people. As a matter of fact, Rema has signalled her intent to go on an indefinite fast before the state secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram from February 3 in support of her demand for a CBI probe. Significantly, senior Congress leader V M Sudheeran has written to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala seeking a CBI probe before Rema begins her fast. The CBI probe demand has wide acceptance in the Congress itself, with Union Minister of State for Home, Mullappally Ramachandran himself a strong advocate of a CBI inquiry.

The trial court verdict in the TP murder case represents the strongest indictment so far of the politics of murder. Will it induce any introspection in the CPI(M)? That is the million dollar question agitating the minds of Keralites. The CPI(M) will have to change its ways and reinvent itself if it is keen to remain politically relevant in Kerala politics. Refusal to do so would accelerate the party’s inexorable march towards eclipse. The CPI(M) cannot shut its eyes to the reality that the Aam Aadmi Party has caught the imagination of a sizable section of the state’s people. The party, which is attracting people from all walks of life – there is a clamour for its membership in the state with writers, intellectuals, apart from ordinary people making a beeline for it. The CPI(M) can ignore this reality only at its own peril.

The allies of the CPI(M) have an awesome responsibility on their hands. They should persuade the CPI(M) to change its violent ways and make itself more acceptable to the people. Parties like the CPI and the RSP in the Left Democratic Front have in the past voiced their vehement opposition to the politics of murder and violence. They must do so with redoubled vigour if the LDF has to remain a potent political force in the state.

Otherwise, the LDF would lose all the advantage that accrued to itself from the UDF’s loss of image and popularity on account of the solar scam and other acts of omission and commission. The TP murder case verdict has cast a dark shadow on the LDF’s prospects in the Lok Sabha elections, which looked very bright otherwise. But in the post-murder case verdict scenario, the political balance would seem to have shifted a bit. The electoral race could be very close in the light of the new political developments. (IPA Service)