A meeting of the CPI(M) State committee on Saturday concluded that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had politically weaponised Central law enforcement agencies to destabilise the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala.
The conference felt that corporate entities struggling to find a foothold in the State had orchestrated a conspiracy to destabilise the LDF rule. The LDF’s spirited resistance to the move to privatise airports, PSUs, and other strategic national assets had upset the big businesses.
They wanted the LDF out of power to promote their interests in Kerala. The BJP was the political arm of the profiteers. The Congress, which played second fiddle to the BJP in Kerala, was their B-team.
‘Frivolous complaint’
CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who chaired the conference, singled out the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for criticism. He said the CBI had attempted to cast LIFE Mission under a pall of suspicion to discredit the government project to provide free housing to the poor. The agency had registered a case against the scheme in an impromptu manner at the instance of the BJP and based on a ‘frivolous complaint’ by a Congress legislator.
The CBI had blindsided the government and revealed itself as an appendage of the BJP. It had lost its independence under the BJP and acted in a politically partisan manner.
To tackle legally
Several non-BJP governments had shut the door on the CBI, including the Congress-ruled Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
It had no entry in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Kerala would not take such an extreme position. Instead, the CPI(M) would resist the CBI’s ‘trespass’ on federalism legally and politically. The CBI, acting at the instance of the Congress government in the Centre, had attempted to trap Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the SNC-Lavalin case and failed. The CPI(M) was not new to attempts by Central agencies to target its leadership. But such moves would not derail the political agenda of the party.
‘Fearful of protests’
Mr. Balakrishnan said the BJP was upset that the CPI(M) had spearheaded the national campaign against the patently anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act. It was fearful of the CPI(M)-led campaign against the new law that sought to jeopardise the interests of farmers to help major food crop aggregators.
On September 29, the CPI(M) would launch a movement to muster popular support against the ‘anti-democratic and anti-people policies of the Centre.’ The campaign would also expose the Janus-faced politics of the Congress in Kerala.