Annoyed and pained by the sustained attacks against him by State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and his loyalists, senior-most CPI(M) leader VS Achuthanandan on Saturday morning walked out of the party’s Kerala State conference in Alappuzha triggering speculations that he might consider parting ways with the party of which he is one of the founder leaders.
Achuthanandan walked out after the sustained attack against him at the conference, which began on Friday, by Pinarayi and his followers reached its peak with speaker after speaker calling for his expulsion or some other stringent action against him for anti-party activities. Sources close to him said that he left the meet venue by saying “Good Bye” to general secretary Prakash Karat.
The nonagenarian leader’s act left the Central leaders dumbstruck and the Politbureau (PB) members present at the conference venue went into an emergency “available PB” meeting which decided to take steps to pacify him, one of the 32 communists who walked out of the undivided CPI’s national council meet in 1964 to found the CPI(M).
Achuthanandan, a member of the party’s Central committee, went straight to his ancestral home, Velikkakath, at Punnapra in Alappuzha where hundreds of his supporters gathered within hours to declare solidarity with him. Posters supporting him appeared in Thrissur while pro-VS demonstrations were held at Neeleswaram, Kasaragod in the afternoon.
The latest round of attacks against Achuthanandan, obviously aimed at either dropping him from the State committee or getting him expelled from the party itself, had started on Thursday with the State secretariat adopting a resolution enumerating the alleged acts of violation of party discipline by him and Pinarayi holding a Press conference to announce this.
At the Press conference, Pinarayi went to the extent of saying, “It is mysterious that Comrade VS is violating party discipline so frequently.” The resolution even charged Achuthanandan with leaking to the media a note he himself wrote to the PB describing how Pinarayi, with the serious allegations he had faced, had taken the CPI(M) off the Marxist path.
This was followed by the presentation to the meet of the organisational report on Friday by Pinarayi in which 42 of the total 683 pages constituted a virtual chargesheet against a totally isolated Achuthanandan, accusing him even of being corrupt. Quite expectedly, the report got leaked to the media instantly.
Away from the meet venue, Achuthanandan remained firm about not returning to the meet till a clear picture emerged. According to sources, he said he would review his stand only if the resolution against him was nullified and this was announced publicly and the references against him in the organisational report were deleted.
According to his aides, Achuthanandan warned Prakash Karat and others not to create a situation where he would be forced to speak to the people about the state of affairs in the party under the present Central leadership and the neoliberalist leadership in the State headed by Pinarayi. As per reports, some formula had already been made to pacify Achuthanandan.
Reports said that even Pinarayi himself engaged two of the loyalists of Achuthanandan to speak to him. His close aides and friends, however, hoped that he would eventually decide to stay with the party. “He has already agreed that he will take no harsh decisions till the central leadership’s response comes,” said an aide.
On Saturday evening, PB member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who is expected to be elected as the new State secretary, claimed, “VS had gone out but he has not walked out.” He told newsmen that VS had left the meet venue after informing about it. Asked whether Achuthanandan would be there in the State committee after the meet, he said, “The party would be there. Won’t itIJ”
However, when the question was repeated, Kodiyeri said, “VS is a very senior leader, responsible for the creation of the party itself. To ask whether he will be there in the party is absurd.”