New Delhi June 24, 2009
Even as the CPI(M) brass observed serious lapses in its organisation and government in West Bengal, the removal of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has been ruled out. And in the party’s biggest in-house problem — Kerala — forcing the resignation of Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, or VS as he is popularly known, is a difficult assignment for party general secretary Prakash Karat.
On Tuesday, B C Khanduri stepped down as chief minister of BJP-ruled Uttarakhand, where the party lost at all the five Lok Sabha seats recently.
At the beginning of the recent Central Committee meeting of the CPI(M) in New Delhi, VS bashers and loyal soldiers of his bête noire, state party chief Pinarayi Vijayan, were unanimous in their demand to sack VS from the CM’s post and the party. But during the last two days, the party’s pro-VS lobby rallied strongly in his favour and the blame game is now equally poised. The pro-VS camp is clear in its mind: VS alone can’t face punitive action. If he goes, so must be the fate of Vijayan.
Some party leaders have tried to convince Vijayan to voluntarily resign as the state party chief. This step, according to party insiders, will make it easy to sack VS. But this is clearly not acceptable to the Kerala party unit which is under tight control of Vijayan.
Realising that removal of VS will also inflicts major casualty in their camp, some pro-Vijayan leaders have floated the latest proposal: don’t sack VS but publicly admonish him for anti-party activities. But leaders like Karat and Sitaram Yechury are still clueless about which option to pursue to dissolve the crisis in Kerala.
The party politburo will meet on July 4 and 5 specifically to discuss the Kerala issue.
The marathon fight between the camps of these two Kerala leaders has taken an ugly turn ever since Vijayan has been accused in the multi-crore SNC-Lavalin corruption case. While the dominating section of the party has so far backed Vijayan, terming the CBI charges as “politically motivated”, VS has refused to toe the party line and wants to see Vijayan removed from the chair.
In the recently-concluded CC meeting, Vijayan acolytes like state Finance Minister Thomas Issac or Education Minister M A Baby cried for VS’ removal on grounds of indiscipline. VS supporters moved swiftly to dig out old records to show that when Lalu Prasad or Lal Krishna Advani were chargesheeted, the party had demanded they should step down. So, why the party is adopting different yardstick for its own men?
The Vijayan camp argued that those demands were related to constitutional posts and not party positions. But the counter logic is: “It’s essentially a question of public perception. For the common man, there are hardly any differences between constitutional and party posts.
The public perception is that in a party like the CPI(M), a man charged with cases of corruption is finding shelter,” said a Central Committee member.
Sources say during the June 19 politburo meeting, leaders like Sitaram Yechury and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee suggested that the Kerala issue should be resolved separately and not get entangled in the Central Committee meeting, which was essentially called for introspection of the party’s poll debacle.
Out of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, the CPI(M) won just four this time.
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