KOCHI: RSS ideologue R Balashankar’s ‘revelation’ of a clandestine election pact between the CPM and the BJP has given ample fodder for the media and politicians to deliberate upon for weeks. In the ‘killing fields’ of Malabar, however, where the cadre of both RSS and CPM would shudder at even the thought of an electoral deal with their rivals, there is little scope for such a debate. In fact, politics for them revolves around the parties’ bloody war, which has left scores dead and many more maimed over the years.
A case in point is BJP state vice-president C Sadanandan, the NDA candidate in Koothuparamba constituency, for whom any talk on a deal with the CPM seems like a cruel joke. Sadanandan, who has depended on artificial limbs since CPM workers chopped off his legs nearly three decades ago, has been projected by the Sangh Parivar as a living martyr of the CPM’s violence in Malabar. Addressing an election rally in Kasaragod in May 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had held Sadanandan’s hand and thundered against the CPM’s polit ics of intolerance and violence.
“A deal with the CPM is unthinkable for us. We have fought tooth and nail to survive in CPM’s strongholds. Many of our workers became balidanis (martyrs) in the process. Sangh Parivar workers here have full faith in the leadership and so they have dismissed Balashankar’s emotional outbursts. They know how valiantly we have fought the CPM to even gain the freedom to conduct organisational activities in party villages,” Sadanandan said. However, unlike in 2016, the politics of violence will not be a major campaign issue for the saffron party this time.
“The violent chapter is something the people want to forget. The work we have done and the pressure from the public have put the CPM on the back-foot now,” said the BJP leader, adding that their campaign this time will revolve around the development vision envisaged by the prime minister. Asked about the rejection of BJP candidate’s nomination in the adjacent Thalassery segment, he said the party is contemplating possible alternatives. “It is an unfortunate development, but we will not allow our enemies to capitalise on it,” he said.
Amit Shah’s programme in Thalassery, which now stands cancelled, would have added more vigour to their campaigns in nearby constituencies, he further stated. It was on January 25, 1994, that a gang of CPM men pounced on Sadanandan, who was walking to his house. Within minutes, he was pushed onto the road and both his legs were chopped off from above the knee. The gang then threw his amputated legs to a field nearby and left, after scaring the public with country bombs.
Sadanandan, who was the district leader of the RSS then, was rushed to the hospital by the police. After undergoing several surgeries, artificial limbs were finally fitted on him. A day after the incident, SFI state joint secretary K V Sudheesh was brutally killed in front of his parents, in an apparent retaliation to the attack on the RSS leader. Sadanandan, who hails from a Communist family, was an activist of the Students Federation of India (SFI) before he was attracted to the Sangh ideology.