Sharp divisions have developed within the Kerala RSP over its departure from the CPI(M)-headed lDF and entry into the Congress-led UDF just before the 2014 lok Sabha polls. While the party’s general secretary, TJ Chandrachoodan, regretted the haste shown by the RSP in leaving the lDF, State party chief AA Aziz said there was no haste but the decision was taken unanimously.
“As I look back, I have a feeling that we shouldn’t have taken the decision to leave the lDF with the haste we had shown then. When I say this, a question may come up as to why I did not express this feeling then. I should have. I regret that I could not do it,” Chandrachoodan said at a district committee meeting of the party in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday.
The RSP general secretary said that he was not certain on how long the party could continue to remain in the Congress-led coalition but this did not mean that there would be an immediate departure. “Today’s Congress is not what it used to be earlier. Then, it was a party with total unity,” Chandrachoodan said.
He also surprised the party leaders and workers, who supported the alliance with the Congress, by praising the current lDF Government headed by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of the CPI(M). He said the lDF regime was working well for over the past one month by doing what they had promised and Pinarayi as Chief Minister had been acting with maturity.
The RSP, which now included a former split-away group, RSP(B), had contested in five seats in the May 16 Assembly election as UDF partner but it could not win even a single seat. In the State elections of 2011, when the party was a partner of the lDF, it had contested in four seats and won two. The RSP(B) also had won the one seat it had contested in the 2011 election.
Chandrachoodan’s statement came a day after the Kerala Congress (M), a major partner of the UDF, aired stiff protests against Congress indirectly for “victimising” its chairman KM Mani in the bar bribery scandal allegedly to keep him fettered to the front. Mani was forced to resign as Finance Minister in the former UDF Cabinet over the bar bribery scam.
While Chandrachoodan regretted the hasty departure from the lDF, State RSP secretary Aziz, who also spoke in the meeting, said that the decision to leave the left camp was taken unanimously. “There is no meaning in making the announcement that it was a wrong decision. But the UDF was unable to defend itself against the allegations made by the left,” Aziz said.
Aziz’s assessment of the performance of the lDF Government also differed from that of the national secretary. “They had come to power promising to make everything all right. Has everything become all rightIJ The rise in prices of commodities is continuing. The closed cashew processing factories have not yet been reopened,” he said.
Observers say that Chandrachoodan represents a large section in the party which feels that the departure from lDF was unnecessary.