Amid autobiography controversy, CPI-M backs party veteran EP Jayarajan

Thiruvananthapuram: Veteran CPI-M leader E.P. Jayarajan, who is now entangled in an autobiographical controversy, breathed a sigh of relief on Friday after the party's state Secretariat cleared him of any wrongdoing, with state Secretary M.V. Govindan claiming that the issue has had no bearing on the party.

"Jayarajan has categorically and emphatically said he has not done anything wrong. The party is not going to conduct a probe into it... moreover, the Kerala Police has already begun a probe based on his complaint. A controversy has been created out of thin air and the party is strongly behind him," Govindan said.

Since Wednesday, the CPI-M and Jayarajan were caught in controversy when TV channels aired reports about his autobiography, slated for release by Kerala’s leading publishing house DC Books.

The book titled "Kattan Chayayum Paripvada", was quickly put on hold after the news surfaced about its contents following the controversy. The book allegedly highlights Jayarajan’s dissatisfaction with the party’s failure to listen to him.

It also criticizes the party's choice of candidates for the April Lok Sabha elections and the selection of P. Sarin, a former Congress member, as the Left candidate for the upcoming Palakkad Assembly by-election on November 20, IANS reported.

Since then, Jayarajan has repeatedly insisted that this was a conspiracy to defame him and his party. On Friday, he, for the first time after he was removed as convenor of the Left Democratic Front in August, came to take part in the state Secretariat meeting.

He, according to sources in the know of things, told the meeting that he had done no wrong and left the meeting before it got over.

Jayarajan since Wednesday has stated multiple times that he is writing still his autobiography and it’s going on for a while now and was shocked to hear the news of its release.

Since being denied a ticket in the 2021 Assembly elections, Jayarajan has been unpredictable, frequently putting his party in challenging positions. On April 26 - the polling date for the Lok Sabha elections in the state, he, after casting his vote, said senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar had met him at the son’s residence in the state capital city and this created a huge furore, which eventually saw his exit as the Convenor of the ruling CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front.