The implosion that took place the other day in the Kerala CPI over the allegation of seat allocation in the 16th lok Sabha election for payment has shaken the entire CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF of the State.
The CPI had on Saturday penalised three top State leaders for the selection of Bennet Abraham, a prominent member of the Church of South India, as its candidate in Thiruvananthapuram for money and out of community considerations. The party was also forced to admit that the entire leadership was responsible for the irregularity and defeat of Bennet in Thiruvananthapuram.
The development has shocked the entire left as this was the first time an Indian communist party was facing an allegation of seat allocation to outsiders for money and was forced to admit that the rot was deep-rooted though the communists have always been in the habit of accusing “bourgeois” parties of indulging in such practice.
The worst hit is the CPI(M), leader of the Opposition front, when it was raking its brains to find out the reasons of the left’s devastation in the recent lok Sabha election which is even threatening to affect its very existence. Moreover, the Marxist party itself is facing allegations from within of seat allocation to total outsiders.
The CPI(M) has so far refused to comment on the developments in the CPI based on the justification that those are that party’s internal affairs and that it would consider discussing them in the lDF only if the situation demands. But CPI(M) intellectuals point out that the party cannot hide behind this defence for long.
“The Marxist party itself is facing similar allegations. Apart from that, there is a view within the CPI that Bennet Abraham was made the lDF candidate in Thiruvananthapuram due to pressures exerted on the CPI by the district leadership of the CPI(M),” said a Kochi-based Marxist analyst. More disclosures on this charge were expected to come out in the coming days, he said.
State CPI(M) secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has said that he does not want to comment on Saturday’s implosion in the CPI. However, the apprehensions of the party were obvious when central committee member and lDF convener Vaikom Viswan quickly rejected the charge that the Thiruvananthapuram seat was allocated on payment, according to observers.
The Ernakulam district committee of the CPI(M) had raised a virtual revolt against the State leadership when former bureaucrat Christy Fernandez, an outsider to the party who was not even popular in the constituency, was given the ticket in Ernakulam lok Sabha seat in the last election though his name had never been in the reckoning at any stage of the seat-allocation discussions.
There were even allegations that Christy was made a candidate on the basis of certain “adjustments” but the State CPI(M) leadership had countered those charges by saying that this was not the first time the party had fielded Independent candidates. Another outsider the party fielded in the last election was filmstar Innocent, who won the Chalakudy seat.
As predicted by the critics, Christy lost the election in Ernakulam where sitting MP KV Thomas of the Congress won by making a surprising improvement in the winning margin. Thomas had won the seat in 2009 by a margin of just 11,790 votes but this grew to 87,047 even after AAP candidate Anita Pratap polled over 51,000 votes.
Pinarayi and his associates now fear that demand may soon come up from the Ernakulam district committee for an inquiry into how Christy Fernandez was made a candidate. “Even if this does not happen, it is certain that there will be heated discussions on this at the conferences which would start soon in preparation for the 21st party congress,” said the Marxist analyst.