Why ED raids on Pinarayi Vijayan put Congress and Rahul under Opposition fire

In the normal course of politics, the Enforcement Directorate’s raids on residences of CPI(M) veteran Pinarayi Vijayan within weeks of the LDF’s ouster from power would have deepened the political crisis confronting the former Kerala chief minister and his party. Instead, the raids seem to have triggered an altogether different churn; one that has left the Congress party fending off uncomfortable questions from within the broader Opposition even as Vijayan basks under an outpouring of solidarity for him from INDIA bloc constituents and civil society groups alike.

Also read | How the ED raid saved Pinarayi Vijayan from internal party dissent

For, while there has been the expected brouhaha from the CPI(M) and other Opposition parties about the BJP letting loose the ED, yet again, against a prominent Opposition leader, an onslaught of similar, if not louder, proportion has been directed at the Congress party and its de facto leader, Rahul Gandhi too.

Rahul’s remarks return to haunt party

No sooner had the ED come knocking at Vijayan’s doors did the swipes – some veiled, others direct – at Rahul begin for having repeatedly questioned during last month's Kerala poll campaign why Prime Minister Narendra Modi's central government hadn’t yet targeted the CPI(M) veteran. While Vijayan hadn't held back his punches at Rahul either in the heat of the election battle, that it was the Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition who hurled the first stone now haunts the Congress; casting a long shadow on its already shaky centrality within an unsteady INDIA bloc.

As ED officials searched Vijayan’s residences in Thiruvananthapuram and Kannur on May 27, the CPI(M) swiftly framed the raids as part of a larger pattern of targeting of political rivals of the Modi regime. Among the first ones to draw a dagger at the Congress, however, was its bitter former ally, the DMK. Still seething at the Congress's swift betrayal of their alliance in the aftermath of the Tamil Nadu results that saw the Grand Old Party trapeze from the DMK's waning sun towards TVK chief Joseph Vijay's rising star, DMK chief MK Stalin lost no time in taking to X and asserting that the ED raids at Vijayan's residence exposed the “hollowness” of those Congress leaders who repeatedly questioned why the former Kerala CM had “not yet been targeted by the BJP”.

If Stalin set the template, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal was only too glad to follow. The former Delhi CM, whose discomfort with the Congress is well known, pointedly remarked that the raids came soon after Congress leaders publicly questioned the lack of action against Vijayan and added, for good measure, that the chronology “raises questions on the BJP-Congress relationship”. Even Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who stood as the Left's biggest opponent within the INDIA bloc till her party was humbled by the BJP at the hustings earlier this month, had words of solidarity for Vijayan.

Feisty CPI(M) MP John Brittas pushed the dagger further in saying while the raids showed the “systematic misuse of central agencies to harass and target political opponents”, the ED’s action was “actively encouraged” by the Congress leadership.

Congress faces awkward questions

Later in the day, as Vijayan eventually emerged from his Thiruvananthapuram residence following the seven-hour raid with his clenched fist held high, it became clear who he had reserved his strongest punch for. Pointedly naming Rahul Gandhi, the CPI(M) stalwart said, “He had asked why the ED was not raiding me and arresting me. I hope he is satisfied now.”

Also read | LDF’s ‘who else’ campaign: Rahul slams Modi, Pinarayi’s ‘arrogant mindset’

The remark cut deeper than a routine campaign rebuttal. It sought to place the Congress in an awkward moral position – a party that routinely accuses the BJP of misusing investigative agencies found itself accused of politically legitimising such action.

That contradiction did not go unnoticed even within the Congress fold. Sundry Congress leaders in New Delhi privately pointing out that Rahul’s “infelicitous remarks” directly targeting Vijayan were being “weaponised by not just the BJP but even Opposition parties” with whom the Congress shared an uneasy relationship.

The Congress leadership’s refusal to condemn the raids as “BJP’s political vendetta” – something the Congress routinely said in the past the moment an Opposition leader was paid a visit by any central investigation agency – only made matters worse. The optics didn't help either. The raids happened while the Congress’s newly minted CM VD Satheesan was in the national capital for a slew of meetings, including one a day earlier with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but chose to keep mum on the action against his predecessor. On the day of the raids, CPI(M) leaders, including party general secretary MA Baby, were heckled by the Delhi police and detained as they tried to organise a protest march to the ED headquarters. Yet, even for this high-handedness there was no condemnation from the Congress leadership.

Congress cornered after raids

Rahul’s seemingly ill-chosen words of criticism for Vijayan during the Kerala campaign may have been rooted in the political compulsions of portraying the Left as being in cahoots with the BJP and to present the Congress as the only credible alternative in the state. The events of Wednesday now appear to have brought the same accusation against the Congress from its so-called like-minded parties who, in wake of their own electoral evisceration – DMK in Tamil Nadu, Left in Kerala and Bengal, Trinamool in Bengal and, over a year ago, the AAP in Delhi – must now guard their remaining turf ever more aggressively not just against the BJP but, perhaps, even the Congress.

The DMK has already declared its unilateral divorce from the INDIA bloc much as the AAP had done two years ago. A section of Congress leaders believe Stalin, slighted by Rahul’s “betrayal” of the DMK, would be only too glad to use “opportunities like the one presented by the raids against Vijayan” to isolate the Congress within the Opposition space; a ploy they say parties like the AAP and Trinamool may be only too happy to play along with.

Also read | With Pinarayi's LDF loss in Kerala, India left with no Left-ruled state

Congress insiders concede that in the backdrop of Rahul’s poll-time rhetoric the raids against Vijayan have pushed their party in a corner even within the INDIA bloc. The Opposition coalition’s constituents, who consistently accused the BJP of deploying agencies like the ED and CBI as political instruments, were hardly inclined to endorse Rahul’s poll-time arguments that appeared to demand precisely such intervention against a rival.

Opposition unity faces strain

The discomfort is not merely rhetorical. It goes to the heart of Opposition politics in the Modi era. Despite competing electoral aspirations, regional parties within the INDIA fold as well as the Congress have broadly attempted to maintain a common political vocabulary around “misuse of agencies”, “federalism” and “democratic overreach”. The understanding may have been imperfect and fickle but broadly speaking it had been functional.

Rahul's remarks against Vijayan, many within the INDIA bloc concede, disrupted that balance. In trying to trap the CPI(M) within Kerala’s political contest, Rahul unwittingly weakened a larger Opposition argument against the selective deployment of central agencies by the BJP at a time when allies were already restive about their equations with the Congress.

For the Grand Old Party this fallout may linger longer than the raids themselves.