The cracks in Kerala’s ruling lDF are widening by the day with the CPI(M) leading the front and CPI, its second biggest constituent, taking diametrically opposite positions on almost every issue concerning the State and both blasting each other in public encouraging the Opposition parties to allege that the left front has turned into a ‘quarrelling front’.
The war of words between the two ruling parties has become so intense that the other day the CPI(M) asked the CPI not to provide the Opposition with weapons to attack the Government and to raise its complaints within the front and the CPI retaliating with the statement that it was not a party that would say ‘Yes’ to every action of the Big Brother.
As the CPI continued to receive kudos from the general public for its criticisms against the CPI(M) and the Government led by Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan whose popularity graph seems to be on a consistent downslide, the CPI(M) is expected to discuss the matter at the meeting of its Politbureau (PB) and Central Committee (CC) beginning Monday.
“There are no indications that the so-called conflict between the CPI and the CPI(M) can lead to an eventual breakup as the Opposition would want. But the conflict will certainly go on for a long time. The CPI is measuring every Government act with leftist yardstick and that is what is baffling the CPI(M),” said a Kochi-based former CPI(M) theorist.
According to him, the CPI(M)’s Central leadership meetings cannot avoid discussions on the Kerala situation particularly because the communist standoff has worsened after an intervention by PB member and former CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, who publicly advised the CPI to remember that it was part of the State Government and not in the Opposition.
CPI’s articulate State secretary Kanam Rajendran struck back at Karat by stating that his party had been speaking as a left entity and that the position it had adopted in various serious issues like that of the UAPA and encounter killing of Maoists were ‘consistently reflective of the leftist positions at the national level.’
Shortly after Karat spoke on the Kerala issue, CPI’s national leadership declared full support for the position adopted by the party’s State unit, making it extremely necessary for the CPI(M)’s central leadership to discuss the matter at its meetings beginning Monday in order to find some way to get out of the situation.
The Kerala CPI’s objections to the 11-month-old Pinarayi Government’s functioning style had started almost six months ago after the killing of two Maoists by State police in an allegedly fake encounter in the forests of Nilambur, Malappuram on November 24. Kanam objected to the police act saying left parties could never accept killing of political adversaries. The CPI has since then opposed the CPI(M) and the Chief Minister on several issues.
The Opposition Congress, itself in a big mess following the announcement of organisational elections, is making every possible effort to cash in on the conflict situation.
Sensing the intentions of the Congress, State CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who had just the other day advised the CPI not to become a tool in the hands of the Opposition, said on Sunday that there were no policy-wise differences between his party and the CPI and that nobody should dream of separating the CPI from the left front.