CPM not fully convinced of Jayarajan’s claim, abandons him to a lonely fight

The CPM has distanced itself fully from the controversy related to CPM central committee member E P Jayarajan's 'autobiography' that the writer himself has now disowned. After CPM state secretary M V Govindan's press conference in Kannur on Wednesday, it is clear that the party wants its central committee member to fight it out alone and clear the air, and not expect any kind of help from the party.

Govindan repeatedly hinted that it was Jayarajan's battle and not the party's. He remained indifferent to questions that asked whether the party would initiate legal action against DC Books for releasing excerpts that were potentially humiliating for the party, and that too from a book that Jayarajan has now claimed that he had not written.

But when the questioning became insistent, he asked a reporter: "Is that your opinion? (that the party should take legal action)". He was told "yes". "Then we will consider that," Govindan said in the impassive manner of a man bored by what is happening around. "So you mean to say that the party will take legal action?", he was asked. "I did not say that. I only said that we would consider that."

Later, annoyed by the same line of questioning, the CPM state secretary said: "Who else should take legal action other than the writer himself." Such a neutral, even indifferent, stand is at odds with the over-protective stand of the party when Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s daughter Veena Vijayan and her company Exalogic Solutions were implicated in the CMRL bribery scandal. Then, the CPM State Secretariat came out openly in defence of Veena’s company, Exalogic Solutions.

There was a telling moment during the press conference on November 13 that revealed that the party was not fully convinced of Jayarajan's claim. Govindan was told that Jayarajan was always finding himself in the middle of controversies on election days, and was asked whether the party felt that there was in fact a conspiracy to malign Jayarajan. Govindan pretended as if he had not heard the question, a clear hint that the party was in no mood to paint Jayarajan as a martyr.

Six months ago, on another polling day, Jayarajan had caused severe embarrassment for the party. It was on April 26, on the day of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, that Jayarajan admitted that he had met BJP leader Prakash Javadekar, triggering speculations of a CPM-BJP deal. Then, the Chief Minister had given Jayarajan the likeable image of a well-meaning communist who, at times, blundered into bad company.

Though it will not take extra effort to defend Jayarajan, the CPM will take at face value Jayarajan's renunciation of the autobiography that DC Books was planning to release on polling day, November 13. "The party stands by what Jayarajan has said," Govindan said.

More than as a defence of Jayarajan, such a stand is politically convenient for the CPM to fend off troubling questions that the mysterious 'autobiography' has thrown up.

Jayarajan's clarification that he has not written any of what has been excerpted by DC Books has come in handy for the CPM state secretary to dismiss uncomfortable posers like P Sarin's candidacy or even Jayarajan's removal from the post of LDF convenor. "When Jayarajan himself had said that he has not written these and also that he has not sent any of what he has written to any publisher, why should the party respond to anything that is said in a cooked up memoir," Govindan said.