MM Mani

May 28: Trophy in the north, tempest in the south.

The CPM today won the posts of mayor and deputy mayor in the Shimla Municipal Corporation but the central leadership struggled to savour the victory as it was left red-faced by the remarks of a Kerala leader justifying political murders.

M.M. Mani, the leader who had made the remarks but retracted two days later, was today booked for murder, conspiracy and other charges in a FIR filed by police in Idukki district, where he is the district secretary. The charges are non-bailable. But sources ruled out an immediate arrest as the FIR has been lodged on the basis of his speech alone. An inspector will conduct an investigation.

Rivals slammed the CPM over Mani’s remarks, with ally CPI joining the Congress and BJP. Senior CPI leader A.B. Bardhan dubbed the remarks “shocking” and sought “action”.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari equated the CPM with the BJP. “The country is endangered by the extreme right and the Left. Both use violence as a political tool,” Tewari said in Delhi.

But BJP leader and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who has faced the CPM’s attacks over the 2002 riots in his state, accused the Left party of behaving like Maoists. “When a leader of a political party says that we murder our political rivals, it is dangerous for democracy.”

The CPM sought to sidestep the issue, with the politburo choosing to focus on the Shimla victory. Party general secretary Prakash Karat said “appropriate action” would be taken against Mani, while politburo member Sitaram Yechury asserted the CPM did not believe in the politics of violence. “We are not perpetrators but victims of political violence,” Yechury said, welcoming the probe into Mani’s remarks.

Sources said the central leadership had sought a report from the Kerala unit and could consider Mani’s expulsion when the politburo and central committee meet on June 8.

But sources in Kerala suggested Mani’s statements and the subsequent retraction could have been part of a game plan by the official faction led by state CPM secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. Vijayan’s party rival, Opposition leader V.S. Achuthanandan, was state secretary in the 1980s when the four killings — one of those murdered was Ancheri Baby, a worker of Congress labour arm Intuc — mentioned by Mani occurred.

The Kerala controversy overshadowed the feat in Himachal, where CPM candidates were elected the Shimla mayor and deputy mayor, stunning Congress and the state’s ruling BJP.

The candidates were not chosen by councillors, as is usually the case, but in a direct election held for the first time in the state. The CPM had won only three seats in the 25-member civic body in the civic polls that produced a hung verdict with the BJP bagging 12 and the Congress 10.

A CPM politburo statement termed the victory “historic” and said it “salutes the people of Shimla”.