The developments in the CPI(M) in the past three days have proved how weak the party, torn between compulsions of neo-liberalism and proletarian ideology, has become politically under general secretary Prakash Karat, whom a contemporary Marxist guru had termed as a nine-to-five revolutionary, and a set of top leaders who are warring among themselves, say observers.
The endorsement by the central leadership of a Kerala State Committee decision to expel three close aides of central committee (CC) member VS Achuthanandan and its failed bid to approve the State panel’s decision to remove him as Opposition leader in the Assembly have raised serious questions about the organisation’s impartiality and credibility.
Achuthanandan’s aides, belonging to the lowest of the party forums (branch committees), were expelled over the “unjustifiable” charge that they had leaked to the Press information from the State Secretariat six years back. “It is shameful for the leadership that issue of their expulsion had to reach the level of central committee for ratification,” a VS-loyalist pointed out.
Neither the State leadership nor Karat has so far been able to explain how these three lower committee men with no access to State secretariat could leak information from it. likewise, they have also been unable to explain how reports on meetings of committees in which he had not taken part had leaked. “It is nothing but plain bias,” said the VS-loyalist.
That the same Politburo (PB) and CC which endorsed the VS aides’ expulsion at the insistence of the neo-liberalist State leadership had to constitute a six-member PB commission to examine allegations against Achuthanandan shows the confusion among the top Marxist leadership with respect to crucial party issues in the context of the upcoming lok Sabha polls.
The credibility crisis of the CPI(M) leadership has also been complicated by its refusal to share with the organisation and people the report of a party commission which had reportedly inquired into the allegations of direct and indirect involvement of party functionaries in the murder of rebel leader TP Chandrasekharan of Onchiyam, Kozhikode on May 4 last year.
“This is not an in-house matter of the CPI(M). Party workers and the people outside have to know about the fate of the report of that commission. Karat cannot hide behind his flimsy justification that he cannot reveal the report’s content as the matter is in the court,” said Marxist thinker and former CPI(M) theorist Appukkuttan Vallikkunnu.
The neo-liberalists had taken the proposals for sacking VS as Opposition leader and for expelling his three aides — A Suresh, VK Sasidharan and K Balakrishnan — as the final battle against the octogenarian leader, last of the traditionalists in the party. “But they had to satisfy themselves with a half-victory,” said the VS-loyalist.
“Achuthanandan is so important in Kerala’s Marxist politics that these same neo-liberalists who have been baying for his blood for the past 10 years had used posters featuring his life-size images in their Assembly poll campaigns in 2011. It is a joke. They want his popularity for poll victories but they don’t want him as their leader,” said media critic and lawyer K Jayasankar.
What had led to the State committee’s proposal to remove Achuthanandan as Opposition leader was his repeated allegations of corruption against State party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, the head of the neo-liberalist faction in the party. Pinarayi is seventh accused in the `374.5-crore SNC lavalin corruption case being handled by the CBI.