Kerala political killings: CPM claims to be the bigger victim, says it has lost more members than BJP, RSS

New Delhi: In contrast to BJP and RSS claims that Kerala’s ruling Marxists are on a killing spree, the CPM has said that it has lost more members to political violence than any other party in the state since 2000. [caption id=“attachment_3900475” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of CPM in Kerala. AFP[/caption] “The BJP, under the direction of the RSS, has begun an all-India campaign directed against the so-called violence of the CPM against the RSS-BJP workers,” an editorial in the CPM journal People’s Democracy said. “But the concocted facts cannot be sustained. According to Kerala Police figures, between 2000 and 2017, 85 CPM workers were killed as against 65 of the RSS-BJP. These figures themselves reveal who has borne the brunt of the attacks,” it said. It said a RSS-BJP game plan in Kerala had been unfolding after the BJP failed to make a significant impact in the May 2016 assembly election. “It fell back on its longstanding method of launching violent attacks targeting CPM workers all across Kerala,” it said. “The outcry orchestrated by the RSS at the national level, about Marxist violence against the RSS-BJP workers, is an indication of its growing frustration at its inability to put the CPM on the defensive and to destabilize the functioning of the LDF government,” the editorial alleged. Pointing out the alleged corruption scandals that it said had engulfed the BJP state unit, the CPM claimed that it was to divert attention from this that the BJP-RSS had resorted to engineering clashes with the CPM. “The killing of an RSS worker being blamed on the CPM has nothing to do with politics. It was a quarrel about control of a local market and the man who led the gang which committed the murder has no links with the CPM and has a known criminal record.” The editorial added: “The RSS should realize that its violent tactics will not work in Kerala.”