CPI(M) pushes back against UDF govt’s decision to institute police probe against Pinarayi Vijayan, kin based on ED’s request

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M.A.Baby, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) | Photo Credit: SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP

Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] on Tuesday (September 22, 2026) asked the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to clarify whether the Congress-ruled United Democratic Front (UDF) government in Keralam’s decision to order a police inquiry against former Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan, his daughter T. Veena and son-in-law and former Minister P.A. Mohamed Riyas “at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-controlled” Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the CMRL-Exalogic payoff controversy had the imprimatur of the party’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge or the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Rahul Gandhi.

Speaking to reporters in New Delhi, CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby said the Congress’s political line in Keralam “stood in stark contrast” to the party’s purported national opposition to the Centre’s “misuse” of investigative agencies to target non-BJP parties.

Mr Baby said the Keralam’s Congress leadership’s “right-wing Hindutva lurch is evident” in past actions. “The UDF allowed the full rendering of Vande Mataram, replete with Hindu iconography, at the government’s swearing-in ceremony, and later at other State functions, including events organised by the State-funded autonomous universities. The UDF has meekly surrendered to the Lok Bhavan’s agenda to stack varsity Senates with RSS apparatchiks and fellow travellers. The current inquiry against CPI(M) leaders and their family is merely an extension of the UDF’s soft Hindutva agenda”, Mr Baby added. 

He said the Congress in Keralam had “joined hands with the ED” to further the political aims of “Mohan Bhagwat (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief), Amit Shah (Union Home Minister) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to weaken Left-secular opposition to Hindu nationalist forces” by prosecuting a political witch-hunt against the CPI(M). 

Mr Baby said the Central government has repeatedly and feloniously used the ED as a cat’s paw to maul Congress leaders into defecting to the BJP and also muting the INDIA bloc’s secular-democratic narratives inimical to the RSS’s Hindutva agenda. 

Nevertheless, Mr Baby alleged that the Congress in Keralam appeared to be at odds with the party’s national leadership, which has questioned and legally challenged the ED’s strong-arm and intimidatory tactics, including eliciting forced testimonies by putting persons under physical and emotional duress. 

“The ED has questioned Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. It has slapped cases against ministers in Congress-ruled Karnataka and raided their official residences, eliciting protest from the Karnataka Chief Minister and also the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee. In contrast, the Congress’s political executive in Keralam has brazenly kowtowed to the ED’s political agenda,” he said.

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