Feud has erupted in the Ernakulam district committee of the CPI(M) over the Kerala party leadership’s “unilateral” decision to field film star Innocent as the candidate of the lDF in Chalakkudy constituency, which has allegedly given out a wrong message that “anybody can be made an lDF candidate”.
A strong section in the district committee has also raised criticisms against the selection of former IAS officer Christy Fernandez as the lDF’s candidate in the Ernakulam seat to oppose Congress’s Union Minister KV Thomas. District party leaders are alleging that Fernandez is a nominee of a business magnate with whom certain State CPI(M) leaders have close links.
Though Innocent is claiming that he is son of a communist and that he had earlier contested a municipal election as left candidate, leaders in the CPI(M)’s Ernakulam district committee are of the opinion that he has never proved his leftist orientation. “Suddenly Innocent is there as our candidate. We are stunned,” said a district committee member.
There are also complaints that Innocent has proved himself as a willing representative of the “ruling class” as the president of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA). “We all remember how AMMA, under the leadership of Innocent, had opposed the low-level cine-technicians when they demanded better wages and working conditions,” said another leader.
“However, our issue is different. How can the party field a film star with no connections to it in a constituency like Chalakkudy when there are enough popular party leaders who deserve to be nominatedIJ” he asked. CPI(M)’s Ernakulam district committee had witnessed some of the worst faction fights between the traditionalists and the neo-liberalists.
The sitting MP from Chalakkudy constituency, spread in Ernakulam and Thrissur districts, is KP Dhanapalan of the Congress who had defeated CPI(M)’s UP Joseph in 2009. “The proposal before the State leadership of the party and the lDF was to field a senior Marxist leader in Chalakkudy but we don’t know how that was sabotaged,” said the district panel member.
Similar criticisms have come up against the decision to field Christy Fernandez, who was secretary to former President Pratibha Patil, in the Ernakulam constituency as the lDF candidate. CPI(M) leaders in Kochi point out that Fernandez is not known to the people of the constituency. They also say that he has never been known as a pro-left bureaucrat.
“It is said that he is close to the top clergy of the Catholic Church. Proximity to the Church is seen as an advantage in the Ernakulam Assembly segment. But there are six other segments in this lok Sabha seat which are dominated by working class people,”: said the district committee member.
“I am ashamed to admit that so many strange things are happening in the CPI(M),” said a Kochi-based leader. “The situation is so bad that we cannot find fault with anyone who says that anybody could become the candidate of lDF. But the problem is that voters need not agree with this,” he added.
As a matter of fact, objections from within the CPI(M) to selection of lDF candidates are not limited to Chalakkudy and Ernakulam. Protests had come up in the Kozhikode district committee against the decision to field DYFI leader AN Shamseer, a staunch loyalist of State party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, in the crucial Vadakara constituency.
Four area committees of the party had come out with stiff opposition to the decision to field former Congress leader V Abdul Rahman in the Ponnani seat where the left had joined hands with Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Madani’s PDP in the 2009 lok Sabha election.