The Kerala Home Department is preparing for what is being described as one of the most consequential political earthquake investigations in the state’s history. Beyond a mere financial corruption probe, the department envisions this as a powerful move that could shake political fortresses to their core.

The investigations, directly overseen by the UDF government and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, are aimed at bringing VN Vasavan, the former Devaswom Minister and one of the strongest leaders of the Communist movement in Kottayam district, before the law. With a declaration to bring before the law those who tampered with the sacred gold articles and holy ornaments of Sabarimala, which are connected to the sentiments of crores of Ayyappa devotees, these moves carry the clear political objective of completely dismantling the iron fortresses of the Left that have been protected by power until now.

In addition to the financial irregularities worth crores in the Devaswom department, the demand to reinvestigate certain political murders and suspicious deaths that occurred years ago in Kottayam district and were later suppressed through party influence has gained strength, doubling the pace of legal proceedings against the former minister.

The new moves by the Home Department are aimed at uprooting the underground mafia connections and criminal gangs in Kottayam and Ettumanoor. Old cases that were previously halted midway without reaching the higher-ups due to power influence and strong interventions by local leadership are now becoming the main topic of discussion in high-level meetings at the Police Headquarters.

Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has instructed officials that the law should take its course not with political vengeance but in a transparent and rigorous manner. The most critical among these new moves is an old political murder case that took place years ago at Aymanam in Kottayam. Information that many of those behind this murder maintained close connections with the later Sabarimala Devaswom mafia and gold tampering has led the Home Department to decide to dust off this case.

Alongside this, complaints have reached the Home Minister from various quarters demanding the reinvestigation of the murder case of Sudish Kumar’s first wife, which had caused major political controversies at the time. The indirect involvement of certain prominent Devaswom employees in Kottayam and large-scale conspiracies were alleged behind this suspicious death.

In the current political scenario, reopening these old files and expanding the investigation is expected to completely shut down a large Devaswom criminal network that had grown centered around Ettumanoor and Aymanam, according to UDF circles.

As a first phase of the investigation, the special investigation team has turned its attention to former ministers Kadakampally Surendran and VN Vasavan, who handled the Devaswom department during the previous Left rule, according to the latest reports from the Police Headquarters.

The SIT has already taken into custody the old strong room registers of Sabarimala and authoritative documents related to the weighing of gold, after discovering in preliminary examinations themselves large-scale tampering and forgery in the accounts of gold articles and lamps stored for years in the Devaswom strong rooms. Official notices will soon be sent to both former ministers asking them to appear for questioning, and the police and Home Department expect that detailed interrogation will help bring out scientific evidence of a large gold smuggling operation.

While these stringent legal proceedings and investigations are intensifying on one side, a severe internal rebellion within the Communist Party against VN Vasavan is creating further crisis for him. In the recent CPM Kottayam Area Committee meetings, even the party’s own rank and file and local leaders publicly raised strong internal criticisms against the former minister. The main allegation was that Vasavan and his personal staff members deliberately kept ordinary party workers and the public at a distance during and after his tenure as minister.

In a crucial party meeting attended directly by CPM State Secretariat member M Swaraj, representatives openly stated that this anti-people working style of VN Vasavan caused significant vote erosion even in the party’s traditional Left strongholds like Thiruvarppu, Aymanam, and Kumarakom. With large-scale discontent and internal divisions simmering against VN Vasavan within the party, this is precisely what has prompted the Home Department and police to double the pace of their legal moves.

Sources close to Vasavan claim he has no knowledge of these old cases or mafia connections and that only his transparent interventions during his tenure as Devaswom Minister can be examined. Whatever the explanation, when the Sabarimala gold tampering case that hurt the emotional faith of lakhs of Ayyappa devotees on one side, and the reinvestigation of old political murders and suspicious deaths covered up through power on the other side, move forward simultaneously, there is no doubt that Kerala politics will become turbulent in the coming days.