Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan's continuing silence on the allegations of secret meetings between additional director-general of police M.R. Ajith Kumar and top RSS leaders has put the ruling CPM in a spot.

Amid the Opposition alleging a "secret understanding" between the BJP and the CPM and the latter initially trying to play down Kumar’s meeting with RSS national general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale, comes the news that the police officer had also met senior RSS leader Ram Madhav last December.

The ADGP, who is facing an inquiry into the allegations raised by a CPM legislator, has admitted that he had met Hosabale in Thrissur in May last year and Madhav in Thiruvananthapuram in December.

Though the meetings were considered "private" and with the knowledge of the chief minister’s office, questions are being raised as to why the meetings of a top police officer in charge of law and order in the state were kept under wraps for so long.

The state BJP had initially feigned ignorance about the meetings but later said there was nothing wrong in a police officer meeting an RSS leader.

CPM state secretary M.V. Govindan, who had earlier defended the meetings, later clarified that the government and not the party should look into the matter.

The leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, V.D. Satheesan, has alleged that Kumar had met Hosabale as Vijayan's “messenger”. “Did Vijayan ask his ADGP why he met the RSS leader? Why is he not saying anything?” Satheesan said.

He also alleged that Vijayan had deputed his confidant to persuade the BJP leadership to go slow on a slew of cases against the chief minister and his family being investigated by central agencies.

The Opposition had levelled the same charges against senior CPM leader E.P. Jayarajan who had met BJP’s Prakash Javadekar just before the Lok Sabha elections. At that time, the Opposition had claimed that Jayarajan had met Javadekar to strike a "deal" whereby the CPM would help the BJP win a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala in exchange for letting Vijayan "off the hook". However, the CPM removed Jayarajan from the post of convener of the Left Democratic Front for meeting Javadekar without the party’s permission.

The BJP won one Lok Sabha seat from Kerala this time.

Unlike Jayarajan, Kumar is continuing in his post despite a committee probing allegations that the ADGP, in connivance with Vijayan's political secretary, was indulging in gold smuggling and arbitrary killing of "carriers".

The CPM had in the past publicly condemned governor Arif Mohammed Khan for meeting RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat at a pracharak’s house in Thrissur in 2022. “But when it comes to its own officer, if not the chief minister, the party at least should have the guts to raise probing questions,” said Joseph C. Mathew, a one-time adviser to former chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan.