Kerala: Congress says arrest of KPCC president is political witch-hunt

The Congress leadership in Kerala got a shot in the arm as senior Congress leader and former Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi underscored his support of Kerala Pradesh Congress president K Sudhakaran, in his tussle with the Left Front in Kerala.

"The Congress party doesn't fear the politics of intimidation and vendetta," Rahul Gandhi tweeted, with a photo of himself shoulder to shoulder with Sudhakaran and Opposition leader V.D. Satheesan.

Sudhakaran was arrested just hours after the all-party Opposition meeting ended in Bihar’s Patna on Friday, 25 June 2023.

Condemning the CPI(M) state leadership, Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal said this was a political witch-hunt. “The party will face these cases and accusations. CPI(M) has two different stands. Nationally, they will say BJP is using agencies against Opposition leaders, but in Kerala, the LDF [Left Democratic Front] government is copying them. They are using the police to file cases against the Congress state leadership,” said Venugopal.

AICC (All India Congress Committee) general secretary and Kerala in-charge Tariq Anwar too slammed the CPI(M)’s move to arrest Sudhakaran. “This is political vendetta and they are taking a leaf from [the] BJP’s playbook,” said Anwar.

Congress MLA and in-charge of Telangana P.C. Vishnunadh too said the CPI(M) arrested Sudhakaran on the same day as the Opposition meet just to appease the BJP and to make them happy. “The CPI(M) state leadership is going against the national leadership. It is the style of [the] BJP to go after Opposition leaders like they did in [the] case of Karnataka deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar and former finance minister P. Chidambaram. That is exactly what CPI(M) in Kerala is doing against K. Sudhakaran. This is not what CPI(M) does nationally,” said Vishnunadh.

He also pointed out that the CPI(M) has been filing cases against anyone going against the party, including the media, human rights activists and political leaders. “The state leadership is following the Modi-Shah style of functioning,” added Vishnunadh.

The Kerala Police had arrested Sudhakaran in a case related to fake antique dealer Monson Mavunkal. He was released on bail, according to a Kerala High Court directive, after furnishing a bond of Rs 50,000, with two sureties of the same amount. A POCSO court in Kochi had earlier sentenced the conman to life imprisonment for raping a minor girl, the daughter of his former employee.

The senior Congress leader had been quizzed for nearly seven hours by the crime branch ahead of the arrest. Earlier, the agency had submitted an additional report before the court , arraigning Sudhakaran as an accused in the case. Mavunkal was arrested in September 2021, following a complaint from six persons that he had duped them to the tune of Rs 10 crore.

As for the state government, on Monday, 26 June, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury maintained that the case against KPCC chief K. Sudhakaran was not politically motivated. “There is a case against the KPCC leader. The state police is probing it. We [CPI(M)] never direct the police to target a person like the BJP and the Union government’s home ministry,” said Yechury, addressing the media after the party's politburo meeting.

CPI(M) state secretary M.V. Govindan too refuted allegations that the case against Sudhakaran was politically motivated.