Kasaragod: M P Joseph had a busy election day on April 6, 2021. He was crisscrossing the Trikaripur Assembly constituency in his brand new white Marazzo, reaching out to UDF's booth agents who are relentlessly sending him SOS messages. The distress calls were from the CPM's 'Party Gramam' or 'Party Villages' spread across coastal and hill panchayats.
But it turned out Trikaripur was too hot even for the former UN diplomat. "By the end of the day, I was rattled. I was scared for my life," said Joseph, a retired IAS officer and a native of Tripunithura in Ernakulam.
A Congressman at heart, Joseph was fielded by the Kerala Congress (P J Joseph Faction) as the UDF's candidate in Trikaripur, a CPM bastion once represented by stalwarts such as E M S Namboodiripad and E K Nayanar.
On election day, Joseph saw his booth agents being thrashed in front of his eyes. Police smiled or mocked him. When he went to their rescue, a mob of around 300 CPM workers surrounded his car, raising bone-chilling slogans. One of them threw a 15-kg laterite brick on the car's windshield. He barely survived that day. Two years after the murderous attack on him, the UDF candidate in Trikaripur is ready to tell the tale.
He bares his experience of electioneering and on election day in the book 'Trikaripur -- Chora Puranda Kathakal Parayumbol' or 'Trikaripur -- Telling the Blood-Drenched Stories'.
The book was released by Kerala Congress leader P J Joseph by handing over a copy to the Leader of the Opposition V D Satheesan at Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium at Kadavanthra in Kochi on Saturday.
"The book delves into the CPM's ideology of violence, how it nurtures party enclaves by denying development, and how large-scale voter impersonation and bogus voting help the party register stellar victories," he said over the phone from Kochi. "The place has a huge tourism potential. The island panchayat of Valiyaparamba can rival beaches of Miami. It has hill panchayats. Despite the constituency electing two chief ministers, it has not seen much development," he said referring to E K Nayanar and E M S Namboodiripad. He also wrote Nayanar and Namboodiripad won from Trikaripur and erstwhile Nileshwar constituency with the help of massive bogus voting.
The CPM's incumbent M Rajagopal polled 53.71% of votes and defeated Joseph by a margin of 26,137 votes in 2021.
Recollecting poll day violence
After 6 pm, when the polling was over, Joseph gets a call from Shuhaib and Vijayan, who were UDF's agents in booth numbers 95 and 96 A in the school at Cheruvathur's Kariyil. Joseph reached Kariyil with his aide Sajo, media coordinator Abin, and driver Ranju. "There was a mob of 300 CPM workers," he said.
They parked the eight-seater Marazzo on the road where laterite bricks were stacked up. Joseph and Sajo got out of the car and walked the cattle trail to reach the school. A few police officers who were there walked with them.
On reaching the school, they saw the hostile mob surrounding Shuhaib and Vijayan. "We pulled them out and walked towards the car," he said.
Joseph walked in the front and Sajo in the end, with the two booth agents in the middle. "The mob was raising provocative slogans and slurs that made my skin crawl," said the book.
On reaching the car, Joseph and Sajo entered the car. "But when Shuhaib and Vijayan tried to get into the car, the mob pulled and flung them to the ground," Joseph wrote. "They beat them in front of me and the police," he said.
In the melee, they managed to get into the car and Ranju started rolling the SUV. "But the mob blocked the road and one of them picked a laterite stone and threw it at the car," he said.
The windscreen was smashed and the headlights were off. "By God's grace, the brick did not fall inside the car. Abin and Ranju were unhurt. But I was scared. What if someone lit a match stick and threw it inside the car," he wrote.
Ranju kept rolling the car in the dark. Police cleared the way and they drove straight to Chandera police station.
By then, the UDF leaders also reached Chandera station. They filed a complaint for an attempt to murder. The wheels of justice are still grinding the case.
"I never expected to become a victim of a mob in Kerala. I wonder why the judiciary, the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, Governor, and President are not stopping it," he wrote.
'Election in a party gramam'
Joseph, the son-in-law of the late Kerala Congress leader K M Mani, landed in Kasaragod in mid-March, three weeks before the election. He came to know of the 'party gramam' in Trikaripur constituency. He met the then collector Sajith Babu D and sought video surveillance and extra security in 73 booths in the constituency.
The CPM does not allow UDF agents to sit in 41 such booths, he said. But when Joseph -- who was the district collector of Ernakulam from 1984 to 1986 -- approached Sajith Babu, he was treated with disdain, he alleged. "Sajith Babu is a fellow traveller of the CPM. He gave me a two-hour lecture on how elections are conducted," Joseph said.
On election day, he got the first call from Pilicode panchayat, a bastion of the CPM. "James Maroor, my booth agent at Government Model School at Vellachal, was assaulted," he said. Joseph reached the booth and helped shift him to the hospital. Vinay Kumar, another agent, was attacked with itching powder made of monkey tamarind seeds or naikurana. "When I met him, he was sitting shirtless. His skin is covered with red hives."
'Party gramams' are 'Nano Chinese Republics', where only the writ of the CPM runs, he wrote in the book. "These party gramams are owned by the Marxist party. The Indian Constitution does not apply there. Everything there is under the total control of the party. Private life, public life, police, court, governance, family life, and even the relationship between husband and wife are dictated by the party," he wrote.
Elections in these party villages are a put-up job and the process starts much before, he said. "The comrades will ensure the dead and the NRIs and those who left the village figure in the voters' list," he wrote.
All of them will cast their votes. "That's how the polling goes up to 98%. They hold back a bit because the Election Commission finds it unpalatable if 100% of voters cast their votes," he said.
For voter impersonation, the party arranges multiple ID cards with the same photos and different names and addresses. When Ramesh Chennithala exposed the irregularities in the voters' list, one person had five votes, he wrote. "This is possible because the Left-leaning government officials connive with the CPM comrades," he wrote.
Voter impersonation in party gramam is easy. "With the help of CPM-affiliated officials, party supporters are posted as election officials in the booths. In Kasaragod, a good number of officials, especially booth-level officers, are affiliated with the CPM," he wrote.
By any chance, if the presiding officer and polling officers are not CPM sympathisers, they will be threatened to fall in line on the eve of the election, he wrote.
4 steps to deter booth agents of rival parties
Joseph listed out four methods allegedly used by the CPM cadres to evict booth agents of rival parties in party gramam.
In the morning, the CPM workers would serve tea to UDF booth agents and ask them to leave in two hours.
After the friendly advice, the CPM's booth agent will taunt and pinch. If it fails to nudge the UDF agents, comrades from outside will poke them with bamboo through the windows.
By then most agents will leave. "Those agents who are defiant will be attacked with itching powder made from naikurana seed (monkey tamarind)," he said.
The comrades will show their true colours and resort to violence after that, Joseph wrote in 'Trikaripur'.
Once the UDF booth agents leave, the party will take over the voting machines and cast the votes for its candidates.
He said the book is not based on a study or research. "It is an experiential account of what happened during my 20 days in Trikaripur," he said.
Accounts of the attack on Joseph and the other booth agents were widely reported by the news media.
