Letter Bomb: Why is CPM's Anavoor Nagappan hesitant to call mayor's letter fake

Thiruvananthapuram: A letter Thiruvananthapuram mayor Arya Rajendran supposedly wrote to him has pushed CPM district secretary Anavoor Nagappan into a serious predicament. The mayor insists that she had not written the letter and the CPM district secretary says he has not received any such letter either.

Nonetheless, the CPM district secretary just cannot bring himself to categorically assert that the letter is fake. "I have no idea," is how Nagappan responded when asked whether the letter was forged. "Whether it is fake or not is not for me to say. Let the police investigate. The mayor has said she will move legally," Nagappan told reporters on Sunday.

Though initially the LDF had tried to counter the allegation by saying that the letter was fake, the appearance of a second letter by LDF's parliamentary secretary in the Corporation D R Anil has suddenly weakened this line of defence. Anil's letter too had requested the district secretary to provide names for some vacancies that were open at SAT Hospital within the Medical College premises.

"The party cannot claim with any degree of conviction that both the letters are fake especially when there is a long held perception that the party is adept at facilitating backdoor appointments," a former CPM councillor, and CPM area committee member, told Onmanorama.

There is yet another reason why the district secretary has left open the question whether the letter is fake. He suspects that the ongoing tussle to emerge as the next Thiruvananthapuram district secretary could have played a part. He wants the district unit to look into the possibility of an inside job.

"What if some of his detractors within the district unit had used the mayor as a cover to discredit comrade Anavoor," the former councillor who is close to Nagappan said. "That is also why he was angry when the news came out and directed the mayor to waste no time to file a complaint with the police. Even if this could turn the spotlight on the factionalism in the district unit, I think comrade Anavoor wants his foes within the party to be exposed," the local leader said.

The last CPM district conference in January this year had reelected Anavoor Nagappan as the district secretary; he first came to the head of the district committee in 2016 when the then incumbent Kadakampally Surendran stepped down to contest the Assembly polls, and Nagappan was then reelected in 2018.

However, during the State Conference in March, Nagappan was elected to the CPM State Secretariat. Once a district secretary is elected to the State Secretariat, it is usual for the incumbent to relinquish his district secretary post and for the next district committee meeting to elect a new secretary. This was how, after K N Balagopal and P Rajeeve were elected to the State Committee, Kochi and Kollam got new district secretaries.

It is in Thiruvananthapuram alone that one leader is holding on to two top posts in the CPM. This, according to CPM sources, had caused deep bitterness within the party. The Thiruvananthapuram district secretary is said to possess the biggest authority in the CPM's existing scheme of things; of course after the Chief Minister, party secretary and perhaps the Kannur district secretary. It is said that Nagappan is loathe to renounce this clout.

In the meantime, possibly helping Nagappan to retain his sphere of influence, the district committee is engrossed in an intense generational war. On the one hand are those who want young and new faces to take over. They have put forward the names of V Joy MLA and K S Sunil Kumar, both new faces in the CPM Thiruvananthapuram district secretariat.

Another group wants the reins of the district handed over to established leaders who had adorned relatively small posts earlier but still had not got the opportunity to play a substantial leadership role at the organisational level. Former mayor Jayan Babu and C Ajayakumar have staked their claim.

"It is not as if there are two well-defined groups. Reality is, leaders are pulling in various directions that there is absolute chaos in the district committee," a source said. The factionalism is so deep that even former state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan could not evolve a consensus.

Nagappan has now called for an emergency meeting of the 45-member district committee on November 7 to discuss the letter issue. CPM state secretary M V Govindan is also expected to participate. The leadership crisis will also be tackled at the meeting, especially if it is found that insiders were involved in forging letters.