A former Pinarayi ally and Madani protege snubbed for his past deeds

Poonthura Siraj still cannot control his glee when he is reminded of the day, nearly 12 years ago in 2009, when he, as Abdul Nasser Madani-led People's Democratic Party's vice chairman, shared the dais with the then CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan during an election convention in Attingal, near Thiruvananthapuram.

"I remember making fun of T J Chandrachoodan (who was then RSP general secretary) and the audience loving it," Siraj told Onmanorama, the sound of his laugh over the phone suggesting that the recollection has given him a high.

During the election meeting, knowing he had Pinarayi's backing, Siraj openly slighted leaders of LDF allies like RSP that had opposed the entry of Madani's party into the LDF. "Just because Chandrachoodan was its national secretary does not mean that RSP should not be thought of in a poor manner," he had said in the presence of top LDF leaders, including Pinarayi. It was as if he was doing stand-up comedy.

Siraj's comeuppance

Now, nearly 12 years later, it is almost as if he is paying the price for that insult.

On November 14, Siraj quit the PDP and joined the Indian National League, an LDF ally. On the very same day he was announced as INL's candidate from the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation's Manikyavilakom ward. This is the only ward the LDF has allotted to the INL.

Big brother strikes

The CPM district unit was quick to object, and Siraj had to step aside. Now, it is Siraj who is the butt of all jokes.

"Till the other day he was the PDP vice chairman holding extreme views and so it would be improper to field him as an LDF candidate. His political line is at variance with the LDF's," said Anavur Nagappan, the CPM district secretary. "We were also told he joined the INL barely a week before the last date for filing nominations," the CPM district secretary said.

After it came to power in 2016, the CPM has taken a strong position against Muslim organisations like Jamaat-e-Islami and SDPI (Social Democratic Party of India) that it perceives as holding extreme communal views.

The objection to Siraj's candidature is a clear sign that the party wants to scrupulously avoid any electoral pact that would even remotely be seen as flirting with extreme elements.

Affair that went badly wrong

Anavur Nagappan was reminded that in 2009 the CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan himself, brushing aside the concerns raised by V S Achuthanandan and LDF allies like the CPI and the RSP, had brought the PDP to the LDF fold.

"Then Madani had publicly rejected his earlier fundamentalist position and said he was embracing a new political approach," Anavur said. "The party had also viewed as a violation of human rights that a person, even if holding extreme views, was kept in custody without trial," he said.

But has anything happened in between that has prompted the CPM to believe that the PDP had reverted to its earlier regressive political position. "The public utterances of the party after Madani was arrested in 2010 had distanced PDP from the LDF," Anavur said.

It is also history that the CPM-PDP alliance was a disaster. The CPM-backed PDP independent, Hussein Randathani, lost badly to Muslim League's E T Muhammad Basheer in Ponnani Lok Sabha segment. A distaste for the CPM-PDP alliance was felt almost across Kerala. In fact, one of the factors attributed to the near rout of the LDF (from 18 seats in 2004, its number fell to four in 2009) was this alliance with Abdul Nasser Madani.

The INL, though initially taken aback by the CPM's red card for Siraj, has now announced a new candidate, S M Basheer, for Manikyavilakom ward. Basheer had left the Congress almost the same time Siraj left the PDP. The CPM, however, has not objected.

Please don't misunderstand

All this has left Siraj feeling like a man who has been wrongly slapped. "I did not come to the INL for a councillor's seat," Siraj told Onmanorama. "I was the vice chairman of the PDP, next only to Abdul Nasser Madani. Do you think a person who had held such a top post in an approved political party would shift to another to get a councillor's seat," he said.

Siraj said he had no clue why the CPM had taken such a position. "I don't even know whether Vijay-ettan (Pinarayi) is aware of this," he said. He also insisted that he had not asked for a seat. "It was the INL district president who told a press conference that I would be their candidate in Manikyavilakom. He had not even asked me," Siraj said.

Siraj's winnability

The INL district president Thamrook agreed. "The candidate we had initially proposed was rejected by the CPM saying he was unpopular. It was at that time that Poonthura Siraj joined our party and we thought he would be a good choice as he was hugely popular and acceptable in the area. So I proposed his name," Thamrook said.

Siraj had contested thrice to the Corporation Council and won all the time. His first win was from Manikyavilakom in 1995. When Manikyavilakom was made a reserved constituency in 2000, he stood as PDP candidate from Ambalathara, a largely non-Muslim area, and won with a handsome margin. In 2005, after he was ousted from the PDP, he stood as an independent from Puthenpally and still triumphed.

"In 2006, I resigned from the council when ustad (Madani) asked me from jail to quit the post, rejoin PDP and work for its revival. Do you think anyone who had thrown away a councillor-ship without a thought would still hanker after it," Siraj asked.