THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPM and front are fuming against EP Jayarajan, who created a crisis and armed the UDF by openly admitting on polling day about meeting BJP leader Prakash Javadekar. While the matter is to be discussed by the CPI state secretariat meeting today, CPI is planning to write to the CPM leadership demanding the removal of EP Jayarajan from the post of LDF convener. A large number of leaders and ranks feel that the soft approach of the leadership, including the Chief Minister, to EP, who is causing disdain for the CPM through continuous controversies, is a challenge for the party. They say that it would be harmful to pretend not to see that many of EP's actions do not suit a communist leader. The purity of the motive in the EP's disclosure of the secret meeting with BJP Kerala chief Prakash Javadekar on polling day morning is also being questioned. The channels taking it up and celebrating it became a setback to those who had accused a nexus between BJP and Congress.

Soft approach: Strong protest

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who had publicly criticized EP's lack of vigilance for making Dallal Nandakumar a witness, defended EP's secret meeting with the BJP leader, raising opposition within the party and the front. Alleging that the meeting was with the Chief Minister's knowledge, Congress leaders made the Chief Minister the first defendant in the controversy.

While EP was the chief editor of the party newspaper, there were allegations that he had received two crores from controversial industrialist Santiago Martin. In Kannur, P Jayarajan had raised criticism in the CPM state committee about EP's huge shareholding in the Vaidekam Resort, where EP's wife is the chairperson. The income tax department had raided Vaidekam resort last March 2nd.

Jayarajan met Javadekar at his son's flat in Akkulam, Thiruvananthapuram on March 5. The management of Vaidekam Resort was handed over to Bengaluru's Niramaya Retreats, owned by BJP leader and Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and the contract was signed on April 15. All this had put the party on the defensive. A section of party ranks, including those in Kannur, believe that the party, which had taken action against P Jayarajan in the past, is not touching EP Jayarajan, who had created so many controversies, because of the leadership fear that some matters would be revealed. The demand is that no matter how much the leader has sacrificed for the party, action should be taken if the mistakes are repeated.