Anvar parleys with DMK and IUML leaders in Chennai ahead of the launch of his new party on October 6

Photographs showing Anvar with DMK leaders in Chennai triggers wildfire conjectures of a possible political compact with the powerhouse of anti-Sangh Parivar politics in South India

Independent legislator P.V. Anvar, who acrimoniously broke ranks with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], appeared to have more political cards up his sleeve than his allies and detractors assumed.

Photographs showing Mr. Anvar with Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leaders in Chennai triggered wildfire conjectures of a possible political compact with the powerhouse of anti-Sangh Parivar politics in South India.

Mr. Anvar is poised to announce a new party in Malappuram on Sunday(October 6,2024). By some accounts, leaders of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in Tamil Nadu and one of DMK’s Rajya Sabha MPs recently met Mr. Anvar at a hotel in Chennai.

Mr. Anvar’s camp has remained tight-lipped about the development. However, it has not refuted pictures of the purported meeting that went viral on conventional and social media in Kerala.

Mr. Anvar had embarked on a game of political brinkmanship ever since his relationship with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and, by extension, the CPI(M) soured in September.

Shunned by the CPI(M) and feeling unwelcome in the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition, Mr. Anvar railed against the established political class and a deep state apathetic to the common folk. He mooted a new secular people’s movement with socially-committed youngsters at its vanguard.

The CPI(M) State Secretary, M.V. Govindan, has portrayed Mr. Anvar’s move as the outcome of an alleged clandestine conspiracy involving the Jamaat-e-Islami and Sangh Parivar to supplant broad-based party politics based on livelihood and development issues with schismatic identity politics in the run-up to the impending Assembly by-elections in Palakkad, Chelakkara, and the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala.

‘Divisive shadowboxing’

Mr. Govindan said fascist forces on either side of the religious spectrum were attempting to enhance each other’s electoral appeal in the largely secular State by resorting to socially divisive shadowboxing. He termed their stated enmity a political ruse. 

Though not on the same page as Mr. Anvar, at least for now, the Congress and the IUML had endorsed the MLA’s accusation that the government had wilfully linked routine police action against gold smugglers and hawala agents in North Kerala to a particular minority-dominated district to stoke communal prejudice to aid the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala in future elections. The government and CPI(M) have vehemently denied the UDF’s charge.

Published - October 05, 2024 08:39 pm IST