What unfolded in Thiruvananthapuram on the May 27 was not the conduct of a political movement confident in its innocence. It was the behaviour of a party machinery desperately trying to convert a financial investigation into a mass emotional spectacle.
Let us begin with the most inconvenient fact for the CPM. The Enforcement Directorate did not raid the Kerala Chief Minister's office. It did not summon the Cabinet. It did not arrest ministers. It did not launch an inquiry into the LDF government as an institution.
The investigation concerns Veena Thaikkandiyil, her company Exalogic, and the controversial financial transactions linked to Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited. That is the legal and factual core of the matter. The rest is theatre.
The SFIO proceedings and Income Tax findings did not emerge from WhatsApp forwards or anonymous gossip. They emerged from statutory agencies examining documented financial transactions. The allegation is serious because the payments themselves are serious.
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Monthly sums allegedly flowing over a prolonged period, with investigators questioning whether corresponding services were actually rendered, is not some trivial accounting dispute. Once such findings exist, the Enforcement Directorate is not merely entitled to investigate.
It would be absurd if it did not. That is how institutions are supposed to function. Yet the CPM has reacted as though Delhi has sent tanks into Kerala. Suddenly, every routine procedure is being inflated into an existential attack on Malayali pride, federalism, democracy, secularism, the Constitution and, for all one knows, the monsoon itself!
One almost expected party leaders to announce that the raid was personally orchestrated by the East India Company. The desperation is revealing. If Veena Vijayan Thaikkandiyil and Exalogic possess clear documentation establishing the services provided to CMRL, then the correct response is painfully simple. Produce the contracts, the deliverables, the communications, reports, invoices, software records, consultations and compliance trail. Financial investigations collapse very quickly when documentary evidence is strong.
Instead, what Kerala witnessed was a coordinated emotional mobilisation. Cadres flooding the streets. ED vehicles attacked. Public rage manufactured. Every CPM worker emotionally conscripted into defending transactions that many of them probably know very little about.
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Ordinary party workers are being used as political human shields for the embarrassment of an elite circle around power. That is the truly cynical part. For decades, the CPM lectured Kerala about institutional morality. This was the party that claimed a special ethical standing in public life.
This was the party that built its mythology around discipline, austerity and incorruptibility. Every opponent was denounced as corrupt, compromised or bourgeois. Every allegation against rivals was treated as sacred democratic accountability. But the moment scrutiny approaches their own ruling nucleus itself, the script changes overnight. Then, investigative agencies become fascist conspiracies. Then every question becomes communalism. Then every inquiry becomes an attack on Kerala. Then every critic becomes an agent of Delhi. The hypocrisy is staggering.
Even more absurd is the attempt to drag the newly sworn-in government and routine political meetings into this drama. Veena Vijayan is not the state government, and Exalogic is not the Kerala Cabinet. A routine visit to Delhi or a standard meeting with the Prime Minister does not become evidence of political conspiracy simply because the CPM needs a diversionary fog machine.
This constant conflation is deliberate. The party knows that if the issue remains confined to its actual legal boundaries, it becomes difficult to weaponise it emotionally. A financial probe involving a private company linked to the former Chief Minister's daughter is politically uncomfortable. But convert it into "Delhi attacking Kerala", and suddenly the cadre instinct activates. That is precisely what happened in Thiruvananthapuram.
The irony is almost painful. The same political ecosystem that routinely cheers ED and CBI action against ideological opponents elsewhere now demands outrage because scrutiny has arrived at its own doorstep. When agencies investigate rivals, it is accountability. When agencies investigate those close to power within the CPM ecosystem, it becomes dictatorship.
One cannot operate a democracy on such selective morality. And no, comparing this case with Arvind Kejriwal's confrontation with the ED does not rescue the CPM from its contradictions. The Delhi excise policy controversy involved a sitting Chief Minister who was directly accused in a broader alleged policy conspiracy. This case centres on financial transactions involving a private company owned by the daughter of a powerful politician. The factual and legal structures are entirely different. The CPM knows this perfectly well. But facts are now secondary to narrative management.
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That is why the party appears less interested in disproving the allegations than in creating a politically intimidating atmosphere around them. Create enough noise, enough outrage and enough confrontation, and perhaps the original questions get buried under ideological smoke.
But the public is not blind. People can distinguish between political persecution and institutional scrutiny based on documented financial findings. They can also see the difference between confident transparency and panicked aggression. And that is ultimately why the CPM's reaction has begun to look so damaging.
Because parties that truly believe there is nothing to hide usually send lawyers, auditors and documents. They do not send mobs.
The author is a National Award winner for Best Narration and an independent political analyst. Views expressed are personal.