The Karuvannur Cooperative Bank scam has given outsize political importance to the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency in the run-up to the 2024 parliamentary polls.
Notably, Thrissur has emerged as the hotbed of the high-profile political wrangling over the suspected ₹320-crore banking fraud that has riveted public attention and cast the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leadership in the district under a harsh spotlight. It appeared not lost on the CPI(M) that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sees a fighting chance for actor Suresh Gopi in Thrissur. Mr. Gopi had increased BJP’s vote share in Thrissur by 17.05% in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Moreover, the actor has been a ubiquitous political presence in the district, ostensibly laying the ground for his LS electoral campaign.
Sensing a seemingly credible electoral threat and apparently apprehensive of the electoral fallout of the adverse publicity surrounding the scam, the CPI(M) has gone on the offensive. For one, CPI(M) leader A.C. Moideen, MLA, accused the BJP of subverting the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to lay the ground for Mr. Gopi’s candidature in Thrissur. Mr. Moideen said Mr. Gopi had, of his own volition, declared his candidature at a public meeting presided over by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. He said the ED, as if on a cue from the Centre, played second fiddle to Mr. Gopi’s electoral ambitions by disparaging Thrissur’s CPI(M) leadership and casting aspersions on the State’s cooperative banking sector. A section of the media and the Congress parroted ED’s “lies”, he said.
BJP State president K. Surendran sought political cover by claiming that the former Cooperation Minister and senior CPI(M) leader G. Sudhakaran supported the ED probe and refused to give the bank leadership a clean chit. Mr. Surendran upped the ante in the stand-off with the CPI(M) by daring Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to meet thousands of working-class families who had lost their life savings due to entrenched corruption in party-run banks.
The controversy, it seems, has cast Thrissur at the centre of a high-stakes political battle in the coming LS polls. Both the BJP and the CPI(M) perceived that the electoral outcome in Thrissur would have far-reaching political implications for Kerala.
