Despite the efforts by Kerala’s 93-year-old Marxist leader VS Achuthanandan to stay away from the controversy over the alleged dig taken at him by his bête noire in the CPI(M) Politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, the issue seems to be set to dog the Marxist party for some time in the context of the Assembly election to be held on May 16.
On Thursday, Achuthanandan, Kerala Assembly’s Opposition leader, totally ignored the matter and concentrated his energies on a fierce attack on the scam-beleaguered Congress-led ruling UDF while seeking voters’ support for Pinarayi, the very man who made the allegedly ridiculing statement against him, but that did not help in hushing up the controversy.
Even after Pinarayi’s ‘dig’, which was in fact a statement he made the other day referring to a 2015 party resolution charging Achuthanandan with keeping anti-CPI(M) mentality, the nonagenarian Marxist repeatedly appealed to voters of Dharmadom in Kannur, where Pinarayi is the candidate of the CPI(M)-led lDF, to “elect him with pride-inducing majority”.
However, Achuthanandan made his mind known through a Facebook post which said that leftist leaders should take extra care while making political statements during the polls. When this seemingly innocuous statement itself became reason for another controversy, he tried to get out of it by explaining that it was not to be taken as an “advice or warning” to anybody.
While replying to newsmen’s queries on Wednesday, Pinarayi had said that a resolution passed by the State secretariat of the CPI(M) against Achuthanandan on the eve of the party’s Kerala conference in February last year was still in force and that the veteran leader’s candidature in the Assembly election and the resolution against him were totally different matters.
The statement, coming perhaps at the most inopportune moment, stunned leaders of the CPI(M) and other parties of the lDF while the Congress considered it as a sharp weapon to strike at left unity. State Congress president VM Sudheeran was quick to interpret Pinarayi’s statement as an indication of the CPI(M) leadership’s plan to oust Achuthanandan from the party after the polls.
“Some people will never improve,” was how an lDF leader responded to the controversy over Pinarayi’s statement. Several middle level CPI(M) leaders expressed anguish over the statement by admitting that it could mar the unity presently existing in the party if Achuthanandan chose to respond in his characteristic style. “Then, we need not worry about the polls,” said a leader.
Despite all this, Achutha-nandan refused to make even an indirect reference to the controversy in the speech he delivered at Dharmadom in Kannur in the campaign rally organized for Pinarayi. Instead, he directed all his energies to unleash a joke-filled but scathing attack against the Congress and the UDF for its track-record of corruption.
“Their (UDF’s) manifesto says they will ensure a graft-free rule. look who is saying this! I can’t contain my urge to laugh while thinking of their right to say this. Who all are the accused in corruption cases in the UDF regimeIJ The first is Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. How many graft cases he is facingIJ Thirty-one…” he said.
“The Ministers in this Government face a total of 131 corruption cases. Except the lone woman Minister, all members of the Cabinet are accused in graft cases. Think of these same people telling you that they would ensure corruption-free rule,” he said at Dharmadom. Pinarayi, for whom the rally was organized, was absent as he was campaigning in southern Kerala.
On Thursday, Pinarayi sought to put an end to the controversy by claiming that he had not made any statement against Achuthanandan but a section of the media had distorted his words. “Don’t try to put in my mouth words I haven’t spoken,” he said, adding, “A section of the media is targeting me.”
State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan alleged that the media had a special agenda over the issue of the resolution against Achuthanandan. “But they should not even dream of trapping the party in controversies. We are going ahead in total unity,” even as stiff but silent protests were brewing in the grassroots of the party and among the other constituents of the lDF.