Resentment is brewing within the Kerala CPI(M) over the party’s alleged failure to properly and effectively take up the infamous bar bribe scam which is rocking the Congress and the ruling UDF it leads and other important issues despite the fact that the party has to face two important elections within one-and-a-half years.
If sources within the CPI(M) are to be believed, criticisms are mounting against the top leadership for adopting an allegedly soft approach towards Finance Minister KM Mani, accused of taking bribes from bar owners and “selling” Budget proposals to interested sectors, and the Congress which protects him generating a feeling that the party is in a secret pact with them.
Indications of such resentment came up on Friday during the general discussions at the delegates’ meet of the Thiruvananthapuram district conference of the party. Some delegates even went to the extent of hinting that if people suspected that there was a secret understanding between the CPI(M) leadership and the UDF they could not be blamed, according to sources.
“Many in the party think that the leadership is reluctant to launch a scathing campaign against the Congress and the UDF even when there is this golden opportunity where the senior-most Minister in the Government and two other Ministers are being accused of accepting bar owners’ bribe. This anger is quite natural,” said a source.
A middle-level party leader in Thrissur, where also the CPI(M) is holding district conference currently, expressed anguish at the party’s alleged disinterestedness as seen in the decision to launch its formal protests over the bar scam only on February 3, two weeks after “solid evidences” of Mani’s role in it was brought before the public by bar owner Biju Ramesh.
He said such an unconvincing approach was bound to create an impression that the party leadership was not willing to put the UDF in trouble because of some secret understanding. “This is the time we should be cashing in on every issue we get to attack the UDF if we really want to put up a brilliant performance in the panchayat elections due in September,” he pointed out.
An impression has already been created that there are sharp differences of opinion within the Opposition lDF, according to observers. While the CPI wants an urgent, multi-level campaign against Mani and the Government to cash in on the existing public sentiment, the CPI(M) leadership seems to be adopting a go-slow attitude, they say.
“The CPI(M) leadership is already facing the charge of holding agitations of “adjustment” (with the Government, as seen in the case of the protests over the solar cam in 2013 which were suspended abruptly). Now when they have got another burning issue to blast the UDF with, they seem virtually uninterested to launch an offensive,” said senior journalist PVS Warrier.
Just the other day, V Muraleedharan, president of the State BJP which has called for a dawn-to-dusk State-wide shutdown on Tuesday over the scam, accused the CPI(M) leadership of entering into a secret pact with Mani, saying that was why the Marxists were limiting its hartal on Saturday to Pala constituency, represented by the Finance Minister.
Meanwhile, CPI(M)’s youth wing DYFI on Friday waved black flags at the Finance Minister who had reached the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram for pre-Budget discussions with stakeholders. The CPI(M) had the other day declared that it would not allow Mani, accused of “selling” Budget proposals, would not be allowed to present the 2015-16 Budget.
Protests were held by the DYFI in Kochi and Alappuzha also. In Kochi, the police used water cannons on the protestors to disperse them when they marched to the Taluk Office, Kanayannur. In Pala, the UDF observed a hartal on Friday to express solidarity with Mani. The hartal was declared by the Kerala Congress (M), of which Mani is the chairman.