The nanogenarian leader of the CPI-M of Kerala, VS Achuthanandan, fondly known as VS, seems to have scripted his own political obituary after the landslide left win in the State of which he was one of the main campaigners. It was clearly known to political observers that once the left wins with a comfortable majority it will be none other than the most powerful leader of the CPI-M in the State, Pinarayi Vijayan, who will be the next Chief Minister of the State and that VS will not have any role to play.
As it turned out the lDF won by 91 seats in its kitty 20 more than what is required for forming the Government in a house of 140 MlA’s. After knowing clearly that he will not be in the race for the Chief Ministership ,VS tried his best and doing selective leackage in the media that he be made the Chief Minister for a short period of time so that he can take a decision on the issues which he had taken up during the electioneering .
However, nothing of that worked out and during the swearing-in ceremeony of the new Chief Minister and his colleauges, the idealist communist leader, VS, was seen exchanging a note to CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
The content of the note was photographed and published in a newspaper which showed that VS wanted the post of lDF chief with Cabinet rank and all other facilites attached with a cabinet rank and also to be included in the party State Secretariat. Kerala society which had been lauding VS for the bold stands he was taking on various social issues was shocked on the level to which comrade VS has stooped and as to how power hungry he was.
CPI leader late C Achutha Menon who had ruled the State continiously from 1970-1977 (seven years) as elections were postponed owing to emergency had led the Congress and CPI combine back to power but did not continue as CM and he had only two small boxes to take from the official residence when he vacated. So was the case of CPI leader late PK Vasudevan Nair and the CPI-M leader late EMS Namboodiripad who had accepted the people’s verdict and never staked clung on to the post.
VS Achuthanandan has been enjoying Government facilities since 2001 when he was leader of Opposition from 2001 to 2006. From 2006 to 2011 he was Chief Minister of the State and again from 2011 till 2016 he became the leader of Opposition. This note and its content was not denied either by Yechury or VS as the news paper had published it as such, shows how much power hungry Comrade VS is.
VS, who is not in the good books of the party had in the last State conference of the CPI-M held at his home town Alappuzha, publicly boycotted the venue of the State conference when there was a mention in the party draft that VS had anti-party inclinations. Comrade VS tried to become a martyr and selectively leaked to a section of the visual media what was happening behind the iron curtains of the CPI-M.
In fact, VS was the first dissident in the CPI-M and had joined with the powerful CITU lobby against leaders like EK Nayanar and EMS Namboodiripad and had a major role to play in the expulsion of the CPI-M leader MV Raghavan who was the darling of the masses. VS had lost the CPI-M bastion of Mararikulam in his home district of Alappuzha in 1996 to a Congress novice PJ Francis by a margin of 1960 votes leading to the rolling of several heads including that of the then Mararikulam area secretary of the CPI-M, Pazhani.
VS retaliated in the party State Committee when all was decided that Susheela Gopalan, wife of the CPI-M doyen late AK Gopalan, to become the Chief Minister of the State. VS joined hands with his bete-noire EK Nayanar and in the State committee, Nayanar announced his candidature. This resulted in the election which resulted in Nayanar winning by two votes, courtesy VS and the CITU lobby which was at logger heads with Nayanar. This is VS, who will make or break any Comrade or colleague to achieve his
personal goals and had escaped unhurty owin to the carefuly cultivated image of a saviour of the masses, courtesy to a group of spin doctors.
VS has finally fallen into a trap which he had set himself in. Sitaram Yechury has ,according to highly placed CPI-M sources, confirmed to VS before elections to contest and that he would be accomodated in a suitable manner. While VS won from the Malampuzha seat with a comfortable margin, there was nothing that Yechury could do following the landslide win of the lDF and his own plot getting vanquished in West Bengal and Yechury’s hold in the party apparatus hit a nadir.
VS had, it seems ,tried to remind Yechury that he should be accomodated in the party as well in the government with a cabinet rank which was exposed and now VS seems to be going into the oblivion. Even if he is rewarded with a cabinet ranking post in the present dispension, he would be the old war horse bruised and battered in the battle field and had already lost his shine in the Kerala society.