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Faced with growing protest from within the party and the society at large over his contentious comment about Muslim winners of recent local body polls, senior CPI(M) leader and minister Saji Cheriyan retracted his statement on Wednesday.
Referring to the outcome of the recent elections, Cheriyan had said on Monday, “Look at the list of winners in the Kasaragod Municipality and Malappuram district panchayat. There will be a situation where a person cannot win in a place where his community is not in the majority. In Muslim areas, the IUML wins, and in Hindu areas, it is the BJP. Whereas, the CPI(M), which promotes secularism, is getting defeated.”
“In the 39-strong Kasaragod municipality, CPI(M) got only one seat; Congress got two. The BJP, which promoted communalism, got 12 seats, and the IUML got 22. I wanted to read out their names. I wanted this situation not to happen elsewhere in Kerala,” he said.
The Opposition Congress and various Muslim organisations flayed Cheriyan’s comments, which, according to them, were aimed at communal polarisation ahead of the assembly elections this year.
Muslim organisations such as the prominent cleric body, Samastha, passed a resolution against Cheriyan, seeking his resignation. The CPI(M), which initially backed the senior party leader, faced a backlash from the minority community as well as its secular vote bank.
On Wednesday, Cheriyan, in a statement, said, “I am pained that my words have been distorted in such a manner. I have been misunderstood. This baseless campaign is hurting the secular stand I have adopted in my life. I work beyond caste and religious lines. In my 42 years of public life, I have not compromised with communalism. Although my speech has been distorted, I understand that the campaign has hurt my brothers. I tender an unconditional apology and withdraw my statement.”
Opposition Leader V D Satheesan of the Congress said the CPI(M) was following the same path as the Sangh Parivar, and accused it of attempting to make political gains by dividing people.
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“Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is supporting that. Cherian and (former minister A K) Balan had made the statements with the consent of the Chief Minister. How can CPI(M) claim to be different from the Sangh Parivar?” he asked.
He was referring to a statement by CPI(M) leader Balan, who said days earlier that if the Congress-led UDF alliance came to power, the Jamaat-e-Islami would be handling the Home Department.
In fact, the Jamaat-e-Islami had supported the CPI(M)-led LDF for decades until 2019, when the organisation decided to back the Congress at the national level. In 2015, the CPI(M) had even ruled a few local bodies with the support of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s political wing, Welfare Party of India. In 2023, the CPI(M) had openly wooed the IUML and said the party had a secular outlook.
The recent comments by CPI(M) leaders come amid remarks criticised as communal by the leader of the backward Hindu Ezhava group, SNDP, who is considered to be close to the Left party. SNDP leader Vellappally Natesan had said on Saturday that a UDF win in the Kerala Assembly elections would mean that the IUML will rule the state.
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