Alas the electoral politics in Kerala has turned bloody, with the murder of a Communist leader in Thrissur district. Chavakkad municipal chairman K P Valsalan was done to death the other day in Chavakkad, which is predominantly a Muslim area. Another Communist activist A H Akbar was injured seriously.

Murder politics has always offered a ricocheting effect. Hate politics will have no end. Those who undertake gory job for any party fail to understand that the leaders for whom they work always get the benefit and the ghost killers face the music from the authorities and the people.

Leaders do not think for a moment that shedding blood for political gains would strike them back at one time or the other. It works like the boomerang.

A dawn-to-dusk hartal is going on in Thrissur district. Follow-up cruelty, by way of revenge, need only to be expected. Communists are not known to sit idle in such situations.

In a democratic polity, violence has no place and it is not going to benefit the people, who have to bear the brunt from a handful of perverts. Swami Jayendra Saraswathi, an accused in the Sankararaman murder case, is the copybook example for thoughtless acts coming back on the perpetrator.

Conflicts would not solve the problems of anyone.