Central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED), CBI, Customs and the NIA have emerged as the “third party” against the ruling CPI (M)-led LDF in the Kerala elections, the CPI (M) journal People’s Democracy said today.

The journal said, after the Congress-led UDF and the BJP, the “intervention” of the Central agencies had “assumed an unprecedented scale, breaching all legal and institutional norms and in stark violation of the federal principle.

“This has not happened before at the time of any state Assembly elections. In the past, the ED, CBI and IT authorities were used by the BJP to target political opponents, the CPI (M) said. But this has been scaled up to target the chief minister and ministers in the LDF government now.

“Unable to find anything to implicate the LDF government in the gold smuggling case, the CBI and the ED began investigations into various programmes of the government like the Life Mission which has provided houses to the poor,” the CPI (M) said.“The ED has gone further demanding documents pertaining to other government projects such as K Fon (a project to provide internet access to the poorer sections) and the electric vehicle policy. The object of these roving enquiries was to find something incriminating against the government,” the journal said.

After elections were announced, the ED which functions under the finance ministry, filed a case under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and summoned top officials of KIIFB for interrogation, the party journal said.

The KIIFB is an institution which has raised resources for investment in infrastructure projects, the party journal said. The ED action was meant to disrupt this process by raising unfounded and baseless charges, according to the CPI (M).

Meanwhile, the CPI (M) politburo condemned “the refusal” by the BJP government at the Centre to discuss burning people’s issues like the continuous hikes in the prices of petroleum products in Parliament.“ In order to avoid such discussions, the Parliament sessions have been cancelled till 15 March. This is the worst instance of abandonment of the government’s accountability and answerability to Parliament as prescribed by the Indian Constitution,” the politburo said.