Kozhikode: While LDF’s independent MLA from Nilambur, PV Anvar, is firing fresh salvo at Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the Left Front’s second-largest party, CPI, is maintaining pressure on ADGP MR Ajith Kumar, who is suspected of sabotaging the Thrissur Pooram on April 19, just a week before the Lok Sabha election.
“Kerala Police led by Ajith Kumar blocked the roads in such a way that even Revenue Minister K Rajan could not reach the Thrissur Pooram ground when the festival was being disrupted. But RSS' social service wing Seva Bharati took BJP's Thrissur candidate Suresh Gopi on an ambulance to the ground,” wrote CPI's mouthpiece Janayugom in an op-ed article on Friday, September 27. "It only indicates it was pre-planned," the op-ed said. Rajan represents the Ollur assembly segment in Thrissur.
This is the third time this week that Janayugom, edited by CPI state secretary Binoy Viswam, has targeted Ajith Kumar. The criticisms assume significance as the Chief Minister has thrown his weight behind Ajith Kumar and refused to remove him from the post, a demand raised by Viswam and his party.
The op-ed, written by CPI state council member VP Unnikrishnan, wrote that the blueprint for Thrissur Pooram's security arrangements were overhauled and new arrangements put in place by the same officer. "When the disruption of Thrissur Pooram began, the officer (Ajith Kumar) was at the Thrissur Police Club and his phone was on sleep mode and even ministers could not reach him," the CPI leader wrote.
When the police were blocking and lathicharging Pooram lovers, bringing the city to a standstill with barricades, and banning fireworks, what was the job of the ADGP responsible for Law & Order, the op-ed asked.
As soon as Thrissur Pooram was sabotaged, Sangh Parivar activists hit social media and spread the message that the festival was disrupted by the LDF government and the LDF candidate in Thrissur, it said.
The CPI's mouthpiece said that doubts about ADGP's involvement in sabotaging Thrissur Pooram were also raised because of his ties with the RSS leaders.
"When the Left Democratic Front is ruling Kerala, top police officers holding secret talks with RSS leaders are not compatible with Left ideas and ideology. People have the right to know if this (disruption of Pooram) is a planned agenda to open BJP's account in Lok Sabha from secular Kerala," the op-ed said and called for an investigation that can lift the veil on these alleged ulterior motives.
'Absurd to blame junior officer'
On September 24, Janayugom's editorial blasted the ADGP in-charge of Law & Order for delaying the investigation into the Pooram fiasco by five months when the Chief Minister sought the report within one week. The report was submitted to the government after the police said in an RTI reply that no investigation had been carried out, as noted in the editorial. The DySP who gave the reply was later suspended.
The report's content raises suspicions that it was part of an attempt to whitewash those who messed up Pooram. "Media reports suggest that the ADGP's report places the blame for the disruption on the City Police Commissioner, who holds a relatively lower rank in the police hierarchy, and the Devaswoms managing the Pooram. If the news is accurate, the ADGP's report should be seen as an attempt to withhold the full facts," the CPI said through its mouthpiece.
It said that many facts in the public domain support the suspicion that Ajith Kumar played a role in disrupting Thrissur Pooram. "It cannot be assumed that the responsibility of law and order and security of a festival such as Thrissur Pooram, attended by lakh, was entirely vested in a relatively junior official. High-ranking officials, High-ranking officials, including the ADGP, were present in Thrissur during the festival days," it said.
Ajith Kumar, as the ADGP and former IG of Central Region, reviewed the law and order and security aspects on the eve of the festival. "Moreover, a group of police officers wearing hand bands that read 'ADGP Strike Force' was present at the Pooram ground," the editorial said. And when the Pooram was being disrupted, he was in Thrissur but puzzlingly did not intervene. "It is against this backdrop that pinning the entire responsibility on the commissioner alone seems absurd," it said.
A day before the editorial, on September 23, a satire piece in the op-ed page of Janayugom mocked the ADGP for investigating the fiasco when he was the suspect and then submitting a clean-chit to himself.