Kerala minister E.P. Jayarajan files defamation suit against BJP leader

LDF (Left Democratic Front) convener and senior Kerala CPI(M) leader E.P. Jayarajan has filed a defamation suit against BJP state vice-president Sobha Surendran at a court in Kannur, accusing the latter of levelling baseless allegations against him to tarnish his image.

Jayarajan has filed the case with the judicial first class magistrate's court in Kannur, referring to media reports published on 26 April and interviews Surendran gave two days later.

The BJP leader had triggered a row during the recent Lok Sabha elections when she claimed that Jayarajan came close to joining her party. The allegation came after Jayarajan had put his party CPI(M) on the backfoot by meeting BJP national leader Prakash Javadekar.

Surendran had alleged that Jayarajan had approached her with power broker T.G. Nandakumar, alias ‘Dallal’ Nandakumar, with a plan to join the BJP. The allegation forced the CPI(M) and Jayarajan on the backfoot even as Kerala went to polls on 26 April.

As the allegation snowballed into a political controversy, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan publicly remarked that  Jayarajan should have been “vigilant”, and that he had been careless in the past too.

Jayarajan did not deny meeting Javadekar, but said the meeting at his son’s flat at Akkulam in Thiruvananthapuram was non-political. He then said Javadekar had visited him unannounced. The CPI(M) state secretariat accepted his explanation and gave him a clean chit, and the party directed him to initiate legal action against Surendran.