The wind seems to be blowing in MM Mani’s favour once again. The five-year case against the Kerala Electricity minister has ended in his acquittal by the court of the Thodapuzha First Class Judicial Magistrate.

On May 25, 2012, Mani in a speech at a public meeting boasted about the Communist Party of India (Marxist) having murdered as many as 13 political rivals. In local parlance in Kerala, it is referred to as the “1, 2, 3…’” speech, because Mani rather crudely recounted how the party made a list of 13 people and killed them one by one. The period he referred was the early Eighties.

“When Vayalar Ravi was home minister, hundreds of cases were registered against us. We made a list of thirteen people, 1, 2, 3. First, we killed three, one was shot dead, another was stabbed and the third was beaten to death”, Mani said in Malayalam on the dais.

The speech had created a furore at that time, with public outcry forcing CPI(M) to remove Mani from his post of party district secretary in Idukki. The Thodupuzha police registered a case against him as well, accusing him of provocation, creating fear and provoking riots. The murder cases of Congress activists, Anjery Baby, Mullanchira Mathayi and Muthukaadu Nanappan – the three killings he referred to – were reopened after Mani’s sensational comments.

Mani’s acquittal is not surprising given that the police could not produce any evidence to establish that Mani had a hand in the killings. He had also retracted his confession, with the CPI(M) labelling the case “politically motivated’”. His supporters in private defended Mani, saying he has a habit of boasting and making wild charges in a coarse language to play to the gallery and should not be taken seriously.

Surely, a senior politician confessing to carrying out murders in a calculated, cold-blooded manner, is hardly something to be ignored.

Mani is arguably the most powerful politician in Idukki district. Known to be abrasive with a penchant for using intemperate language, the 72-year-old Marxist was in the news for all the wrong reasons last month. When Devikulam sub-collector, V Sriram as part of an anti-encroachment drive, removed a cross that was set up illegally, Mani compared it to the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

“Lock him up in a mental asylum for razing a Christian cross”, he had said about the young IAS officer, charging him with being a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh henchman.

But instead of standing up for what is right, sources say the bureaucracy in Idukki district has been ordered by the political leadership in Thiruvananthapuram to consult Mani before taking any action on demolishing encroachments. This has partly to do with the internal dynamics of the Left Democratic Front in which coalition partner CPI holds the revenue portfolio. Relations between the two Left parties have been frosty with the CPI minister, E Chandrasekharan, asking officers not to spare anyone in the anti-encroachment drive, pitting the CPI against the CPI(M).

The bureaucracy, caught in the crossfire, has chosen not to get scalded. The officers in Idukki have now decided to issue only legal notices to encroachers and wait for their reply. With the police reportedly not extending adequate support to the revenue officials, clearing of encroachers has hit a dead-end.

Rival politicians and officials aren’t the only ones in Mani’s firing line. In April, he crossed the line when he accused women tea plantation workers in Munnar of “drinking and indecency”. In September 2015, women workers had protested the tea plantation management and demanded better wages and working conditions for the 4000-odd women employees. The highlight of the agitation was that it stayed apolitical, not allowing any party to hijack or own the protest.

Perhaps, nursing a grouse against them since then because they had dared to agitate in Munnar – which Mani considers part of his Idukki fiefdom – Mani used crude language suggesting sexual improprieties during the protest with Idukki’s bureaucrats. The charge understandably enraged the women, with their leader, a furious Gomathi Augustine asking Mani, “Do you think we are all w****s?”

Mani is an embarrassment and a repeat offender at that. Insulting women comes naturally to him. In February 2016, he used filthy language for the principal of the Pinavu Polytechnic college in Cheruthoni, asking if she indulged in “some other activities in her room, why should she always keep her office door closed?”.

Without any provocation, Mani had also launched a personal attack on Narendra Modi during the campaign for the Malappuram by-election last month when he alleged that the Prime Minister left his wife as he was suffering from a “biological problem”. The Kerala Bharatiya Janata Party registered a police complaint against Mani.

Although the CPI(M) has said it will publicly censure Mani for his remarks, the man remains unfazed. He says he is fine with not staying a minister but says that “there is little chance of changing myself”.

Mani knows Pinarayi Vijayan cannot afford to sack him right away because within a year two ministers in the LDF cabinet have had to leave. While Industry Minister, EP Jayarajan quit on charges of nepotism, Transport Minister, AK Saseendran resigned after an audio clip containing a reportedly lewd conversation surfaced.

Which is why Mani has the Chief Minister’s support – at least for now. Within the government, Mani does not score high in terms of efficiency as an administrator. But Vijayan is grateful to him for having supported him in the past during the CPI(M)’s internal fight between Vijayan and VS Achuthanandan. Also, the CM could well be in the line of fire from Mani, if he is removed from the ministry.

Kerala’s misfortune is that it has to put up with a misogynist minister like Mani, who in the garb of rusticity gives the state a bad name. The tragedy is that he now will use the clean chit from the court on technical grounds to pronounce he is Mr Clean.