Giving indications of the shape of things to come probably in future political maneuvers, Veekshanam, the mouthpiece of the Congress party in Kerala, on Monday showered praises on CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury upon his election as the party’s general secretary.
Terming Yechury as a communist with credibility in the “Indian politics of fascist times”, a full-length editorial of the paper says that he is being described as a Communist leader who keeps the least distance from the Congress because of his rational outlook. Yechury is a Communist who believes that battle against communal fascism cannot happen without the Congress, it says.
Stating that the main reason for the decadence of the communist movement in India and the failure of the communist leadership was their enmity towards the Congress, the Veekshanam editorial hopes that Yechury will be able to correct this mistake. “Democrats and secularists believe that Yechury has the ability to read the graffiti of the times,” the paper says.
"Yechury is one of the many CPI(M) leaders who believe that the bid to sabotage UPA-1 in the name of the civil nuclear agreement and the expulsion of Somnath Chatterjee were the party's recent blunders. Since then, Yechury has been formulating a parallel orbit in the CPI(M)," the paper said adding that he had boldly pointed out the failures of Karat as party chief.
Taking sides in the alleged faction war in the CPI(M), the paper comments that the party's Kerala unit had failed in blocking the election of Yechury as general secretary though it had used all the weapons available to it. The party was forced to make Yechury the general secretary because of the undercurrents within it in his favour, the Veekshanam editorial adds.
While it is true that the pragmatic political theory propounded by Yechury does not see the Congress as a party to be kept in isolation, several Congressmen did not seem convinced of the necessity of writing an editorial merely to praise him. "I don't think it is a mature move. For the time being, Yechury's election is strictly a CPI(M) matter," said a former Veekshanam journalist.
A senior Congress leader close to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said that the editorial was meaningless in the particular political context of the State in which it had been published. "Do they mean to say that the communists and the Congress, foes for the past several decades, come together to fight the BJP in the next electionIJ Otherwise, why the urgencyIJ" he asked.
The Congress leader opined that the editorial could have been viewed as a valid political commentary if it had appeared in a national-level publication but it looked a bit awkward in the party's Malayalam mouthpiece. "There is a long way to go for both the parties in Kerala before they are even able to think of any association," he said.