The State CPI(M) leadership's efforts to woo the Kerala Congress(M), which had left the Congress-led UDF a week ago, have caused discord in Kerala's ruling lDF with stiff objections coming up from the party itself and front partner CPI.
Serious objections to the efforts of the CPI(M) leadership to somehow make the KC(M) cooperate with the left, have come from none other than senior Marxist and former Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan and the CPI, the second biggest constituent of the lDF.
Significantly, the KC(M) had while leaving the UDF declared that it would not join any coalition but would stand independently.
According to observers, there is a strong section within the CPI(M) itself which does not want the party to have any kind of ties with the KC(M) led by its chairman KM Mani, who had resigned in November last as Finance Minister in the then UDF Government following the `1-crore bar bribery allegation, and Achuthanandan is just a representative of that section.
In a bid to cash-in on the crisis in the UDF created by the KC(M)'s exit and the unhappiness of the Muslim league, the second biggest front partner, over the Congress' approach to the allies, State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and party organ Deshabhimani daily had the other day stated that the left should bring these parties to its side to strengthen its mass base.
The party's secretary and its newspaper had put forward the idea mainly on the basis of the speculation that Mani might take his party to the BJP-led NDA though he had stated that the KC(M) would not join any coalition but would stand on its own by adopting a policy of equi-distance to all fronts.
"The people of Kerala have already declared Mani as the most corrupt politician in the State. As far as the Muslim league is concerned, it is a party infamous as a communal force. It is impossible for the left to have any kind of alliance with such people and with parties that hold such ideologies," Achuthanandan told newsmen the other day.
"Achuthanandan may not be as powerful as he was a few months ago in the CPI(M) but what matters here is that he is expressing an opinion which many in the party want to tell the leadership. Even the so-called neo-liberalist lobby of the CPI(M) led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is not entirely supportive of the idea," said a senior journalist of a left-leaning daily.
The CPI also is against the left having any kind of cooperation with Mani and his party. According to State CPI secretary Kanam Rajendran, what Kodiyeri had said about the issue was his opinion and not the position of the lDF. Some other partners of the lDF were also against the official CPI(M) leadership's position though they are not saying it openly, front sources said.
Kanam Rajendran had earlier expressed his objection to the CPI(M)'s idea by saying that the CPI did not intend to beatify Mani, who had been accused of taking bribe from bar owners. Stating that he had no idea as to what the CPI(M) meant by speaking about an "issue-based approach" to the KC(M), he said, "We won't have a soft approach to Mani."
Meanwhile, Mani unleashed a scathing attack against the Congress party saying that a section in it had joined hands with the KC(M)'s enemies in order to isolate and humiliate it.