CPI leaders visit Jayarajan, Rajesh

In an obvious bid to soften the ruffled feathers of the CPM, the district leaders of the CPI visited the imprisoned CPM district secretary P Jayarajan and T V Rajesh MLA at the Kannur Central Prison on Friday.

The visit leaders to the Central Prison, more than two weeks after the arrest and the subsequent orders of the court to remand P Jayarajan to judicial custody was part of a truce in the ongoing fierce war of words between the CPM and the CPI leaders. The verbal war began with CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan chiding the CPI at a public function here without naming it for its refusal to support the statewide hartal organised by his party in protest against the arrest of CPM Kannur district secretary P Jayarajan. As the state secretary of the CPI, Panniyan Ravindran joined the fray, justifying his party’s political stand on the issue and the fight between the two Communist parties in the state took a turn for the worse threatening to jeopardise the LDF coalition in the state. Presumably, following the intervention of the national leaderships of both the communist parties, they seemed to have decided to exercise restraint. The visit of the district leaders of the CPI to the Kannur Central Prison on Friday was a step in that direction. CPI state council members Pallipram Balan and C P Murali and district secretary P Ravindran were the leaders who visited the CPM leaders jailed in connection with the Shukkoor murder case. AIYF leaders Santhosh and Ajayan had visited the CPM leaders P Jayarajan and T V Rajesh MLA on Thursday.

Incidentally, the CPI was in a political dilemma when CPM district secretary P Jayarajan was arrested and a statewide hartal was organised in protest against it by the CPM.