The woes of Vineetha R. Kottai, the widow who single-handedly fought the CPI(M) in its fortress for more than one decade, are far from over even after the party officially ended the blockade against her and even vowed to ‘protect’ her.
“Now, there is no pronounced blockade, but still they try to trouble me in all possible ways,” she told Deccan Chronicle.
It all began in 1993 when E.C. Balan, Ms Vineetha’s neighbour, declared a blockade against her house demanding land from her father, P.P. Krishnan, who was instrumental in establishing the Communist movement in the area.
“Though the CPI(M) said that it had expelled Mr Balan, it supported all his deeds,” said Ms Vineetha.
Ms Vineetha came back to her house at Pathiripatta near Nadapuram after the death of her husband, Rajendran, in 1996. Egged on by Mr Balan, and with the blessing of Communist leaders, the Pathirippatta chapter of the CPI(M) imposed a ‘blockade’, the term used by the Communists when they stop workers from tilling someone’s land until they follow the party’s diktat. In this case the diktat was for Ms Vineetha to leave her father’s home and go back to Mumbai from where she had come.
“The only friends I had were the birds and the snakes, Nobody came here, no one would speak to me or my children for 10 long years,” she had said.
However, after the travails of Ms Vineetha hogged the headlines, the CPI(M) set out to ‘solve’ the issue to avoid a setback in the 2006 elections. The CPI(M) leaders said the blockade was lifted and even asked Ms Vineetha to attend a party function.
“I was duped,” she said. “They still continue to trouble me. I don’t get workers to pluck coconuts or de-husk them. No one came to help me when a rat fell into the well. I was forced to drink the contaminated water.” Alarming her further, all her four dogs died of poisoning recently. “I don’t know who did it. It was strong poison; the dogs died instantly,’’ she said.