Trouble continues for Kerala CPM

14 Jul 2009, ET Bureau


NEW DELHI: Within hours of CPM claiming to have resolved the crisis in its Kerala unit, fissures appeared to get bigger between the feuding factions. Like several of the party’s tactical moves, the central committee’s decision to remove chief minister VS Achuthanandan from the politburo while giving a clean chit to his bete noire Pinarayi Vijayan could boomerang.

Though some state party leaders termed the decision as a ‘corrective step,’ there were stray protests by Mr Achuthanandan’s die-hard supporters who put up posters saying “VS, you are right and we are with you.” The first indication that the central committee had far from resolved the organisational problems in Kerala came from the chief minister himself when he clung to his stand on SNC-Lavalin scam soon after the party gave its verdict.

However, he said he would abide by the central committee’s decision, putting to rest any speculation about his stepping down from chief ministership.

CPM, which has always taken a moral high ground on corruption issues, came under attack from its foes and erstwhile friends. The Congress-led UDF stalled proceedings of the state assembly on Monday alleging chaos in governance owing to the feud. JD(S) leader MP Veerendrakumar, peeved with the party for denying him the Kozhikode seat, said the Marxist party seemed to be “protecting the corrupt” and punishing those who raised their voice against graft.

CPM, in its post-poll assessment, had come to the conclusion that it was more the chief minister’s open defiance of the party line that contributed to the voter frustration in Kerala than the corruption charges against Mr Vijayan.

General secretary Prakash Karat and his comrades pronounced the state secretary not guilty and pinned down the chief minister for ‘violations of the organisational principle and discipline.’ This was despite warnings from within the polit bureau last week that action against one side alone would not put an end to the squabbling. CPM leaders claimed the decision of the central committee was unanimous.

Another Marxist chief minister — Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who catapulted the Left Front to a massive victory in West Bengal in 2006 — is facing his share of troubles — Nandigram, Singur, Lalgarh, minority disenchantment and post-Aila reconstruction. The woes in the red strongholds of Kerala and West Bengal come at a time when the party is still grappling with one of its worst electoral disasters in the Lok Sabha and municipal polls.

Ms Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, which struck at the heart of CPM’s rural constituency in West Bengal, is sure to give some sleepless nights to her rivals ahead of the 2011 assembly elections in the state. Ms Banerjee’s growing clout has had an effect on the administrative and police machinery as well, with senior officers no longer keen to be identified with the CPM as closely as they have been in the past.

Within the ruling coalition itself, the fissures are beginning to show. After the deployment of central forces in Lalgarh on the insistence of the state and the tacit acceptance by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, fisheries minister and Samajwadi Party leader Kiranmoy Nanda warned that the law could one day be used against the Left. CPI and RSP were also annoyed at the chief minister’s approach.

In rural Bengal, signs of public outrage are unmistakable. These signs also mean that the outrage is not dying down. The chief minister was shooed away by villagers in the Sundarbans when he went to survey relief distribution following Cyclone Aila.

In urban areas — where the Left lost 13 of the 16 civic bodies to which polls were held last month a month-and-half after the Lok Sabha election — there is growing conviction that the Left has been deliberately distorting the implementation of central schemes. Even in Lalgarh, where Maoists had little public sympathy from Bengal’s urban society, there is no support for CPM leaders.