It was five years ago on this day, that 51-year-old TP Chandrasekharan, founder of Revolutionary Marxist Party in Kerala, was hacked to death in Kozhikode. He had 51 wounds on his body.
TP was murdered in cold blood three years after he quit the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and founded the RMP in 2009.
On May 4, 2012, TP was brutally hacked to death by a group in Onchiyam in Kozhikode district. In 2014, a Kerala court sentenced 11 including three CPI (M) members to life imprisonment.
KK Rema -TP's wife who took the reins of the party following his death- and other party members continue to maintain the involvement of Pinarayi Vijayan in the murder.
Five years later on TP's death anniversary, Rema reiterates that Kerala's Chief Minister has blood on his hands.
"This martyr day comes at a time when the very people who killed TP are ruling the state. CM Pinarayi Vijayan has blood on his hands and there's no denial. He is the main conspirator and now he is ruling the state with much arrogance that is ingrained in him. The mere number of attacks on RMP members by the CPI (M) in the past year would prove that Pinarayi Vijayan is threatened by our unfailing strength. And they would try tooth and nail to obstruct our activities," Rema says.
What has TP's murder done to the Communist ideology in Kerala? Rema says that the murder will go down in the history of communist Kerala, as an event that divided it into two phases- Communism before TP's murder and the one after that.
"The Communist party as we see it now, is not how it was or should be. Once, it represented the struggles of the common man and fought for justice. After TP's murder, we saw dissent within the party itself and we are also seeing a growth in an alternate communist ideology. This murder has also exposed the hypocrisy of the CPI (M) in ways more than one. The common man has lost confidence in Communism," Rema says.
She feels that being elevated from the post of party secretary to that of the state's Chief Minister has made Piniarayi arrogant.
"Here is a CM, who behaves as if he is above the party and the people of the state. Here is a CM, who has now emerged as the single voice in the government, thereby oppressing even the slightest possibility of dissent, though it is now brewing in the party."
She added: "Pinarayi has always been arrogant and becoming the CM has only given him more power to do so. But clearly, governance have gone for a toss in the 12 months he has headed the state. At this rate, Pinarayi will not complete his 5-year-term."
Speaking about taking the reins of the party following TP's death, Rema says that it was her second plunge into politics.
"During my college days in Guruvayoorappan college and Malabar Christian College, I have been an active worker of the SFI. Coming from a Communist family, where my father and elder sister were actively involvement in party work, my interest in politics was only natural. TP was a familiar figure in our household, one who had access to our home anytime. I got married to him at the age of 24 in a simple ceremony. Post that, an unexplained numbness had caught hold of me, I was no longer keen on continuing with full-time party activities. But this changed with TP's death. He was killed for his ideology, he was killed because they wanted to end his politics. I wouldn't have let them achieve that. So I took up the reins of the party," Rema explains.
On VS
CPI (M) party veteran VS Achuthanandan, who was once a corrective force in the party, is now almost non-existent, Rema opines. In 2012, when KK Rema was battling for a CBI probe in the case, VS went against his party and supported her demand.
Rema says that while VS could have emerged with an alternative Communist movement in the state, he has long ago, failed to do so.
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"Once, VS was the only hope for the Left in Kerala. But he has failed to lead an alternate movement and is now being sidelines in the party. While the LDF won the assembly election projecting VS as the CM candidate, we all know how the script played out that saw VS being given an ornamental post. VS has not only disappointed us, but also the entire state by choosing to be a mute spectator. Although even now, he is the only one who time and again comes out with his opinions that are in conflict with the party's, the era of VS has ended," Rema said.
On her son
Now 22, their son Abhinandan is now a final year Engineering student. He lost his father at the age of 17.
"At the time, I didn't know that Abhinandan had already got his political ideologies right. He was an active member of the SFI and would engage in endless discussions with his father over politics. But life hasn't been kind to him, who lost his father at a time when he most needed him. I have since been playing the role of both his mother and his father."
Earlier in May last year, during the time of assembly elections, Rema who contested from the Vadakara constituency was attacked by CPI (M) members.
Following this, Abhinandan had taken to Facebook, expressing concern over his mother's safety.
“Spare my mother in my name. I need her to be alive and with me to enable me to lead my life in memory of my father," he wrote on Facebook.