The CPI(M) and its senior-most leader VS Achuthanandan have arrived at a limited truce after a decade-long standoff after the party found a middle-level functionary responsible for the killing of Marxist rebel TP Chandrasekharan of Onchiyam, Kozhikode and expelled him from the party.
On Friday, Achuthanandan, CPI(M)’s central committee member and Kerala Assembly’s Opposition leader issued a statement describing the CPI(M)’s decision to expel the functionary as bold and as something other political parties in India could not even think of emulating but he later told newsmen that the finding of the party commission was “incomplete”.
Achuthanandan’s decision to mend fences with the CPI(M) leadership will bring immense relief to it in the context of the lok Sabha elections for which the active involvement of the Opposition leader in the left’s campaign was inevitable in the present scenario. He has already made it clear that he will campaign for left candidates.
Ever since Chandrasekharan was murdered on May 4, 2012, the nonagenarian leader has been forcing the party to take action against the partymen responsible for the crime while the CPI(M) kept saying that it had nothing to with it.
On Thursday, the State committee of the CPI(M) decided to expel KC Ramachandran, a member of the party’s local committee in Kunnummakkara, Kozhikode and eighth accused in the rebel murder case, on the basis of the “finding” by a party commission supervised by the Politbureau that he had planned and got executed the murder out of personal enmity.
“General secretary Prakash Karat had earlier stated that if any partymen were found to have any involvement in the murder, such people would not be in the party. The central leadership has now acted boldly,” Achuthanandan said in the statement.
That the reason behind the rebel’s murder was personal enmity need not be wholly true, he said later. “The present action is based on preliminary inquiries. I am sure that more inquiries will be carried out if any fresh complaints come up,” he said in Kollam.
The decision of Achuthanandan to mend fences with the party came a little over a month after he embarrassed it with a letter he wrote to the Chief Minister demanding a CBI probe into the conspiracy behind the murder when the CPI(M) had been carrying out a campaign saying that such a probe was illegal in a case in which the trial court had already pronounced verdict.
As per reports, Achuthanandan’s volte-face came after the party decided to sacrifice Ramachandran mainly for mollifying him. The party had arrived at a decision to pardon him for all his “wrongs” if he could henceforth abide by party decisions. Reports said the leadership might even consider re-inducting him into the Politbureau if he behaved in the desired manner.
The standoff between Achuthanandan, leader of the once-formidable traditionalist faction in the party, and the CPI(M) had started almost a decade ago after the neo-liberalists took absolute control of the party. Since then he had undergone several disciplinary actions which included a demotion from the Politbureau and censuring at various points of time.
When Chandrasekharan, who had gone out of the CPI(M) mainly for being a VS-loyalist, was murdered, Achuthanandan was one of the first leaders to suspect CPI(M)’s involvement. This stand had even led to open war between him and State party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan who termed the slain rebel as a Kulamkuthy (betrayer of the tribe).
Achuthanandan caused more embarrassment for the party by visiting Chandrasekharan’s family on the day of a crucial Assembly by-poll giving chance to the party leadership to put the blame for the left candidate’s defeat in it on him. The State leadership had even wanted him to be expelled from the party or at least be removed as Opposition leader in the Assembly.