The effective exoneration of Kerala CPI(M) secretary Pinarayi Vijayan by a court on Tuesday in the SNC-lavalin corruption case is undoubtedly a cause of big relief and joy for him but the person feeling most disappointed by it should be nonagenarian central committee member of the party and Kerala Assembly’s Opposition leader VS Achuthanandan.
The court’s order came just 16 days after he indirectly reiterated on his ninetieth birthday the belief that his Enemy No 1 in the party, Pinarayi, was guilty in the Rs 374.5-crore scam.
Achuthanandan had been fighting within the party and outside against Pinarayi on this for the past seven years. Achuthanandan on Tuesday, did say that he respected the court verdict which exempted Vijayan from the list of accused, adding that his earlier stand on the case had now become irrelevant but that would not take away the pain of losing a big battle from his heart, according to those who are close to him.
Achuthanandan had come into direct confrontation with his colleagues in the party and his Cabinet in 2009 when he, as chief minister, had vehemently opposed the move to prevent the State Governor from granting permission to the CBI to prosecute Pinarayi Vijayan for the scam. The Governor had eventually permitted his prosecution.
The battle against Pinarayi over the SNC-lavalin case within the party had cost him his membership in the party’s Politbureau, a forum he had stayed with for 24 years. His intransigence with respect to the case had forced the party to take the painful decision of demoting its senior-most leader from the Politbureau to the central committee in July, 2009.
VS-loyalists in the CPI(M) now admit that Pinarayi’s victory in the court would lead to further isolation of Achuthanandan, whose so-called traditionalist group had systematically been cut to size by neo-liberalists led by the party secretary, in the party. “But I don’t think VS would ever be convinced of the court’s decision and concede defeat,” said a loyalist.
Still, Pinarayi need not be alone in enjoying this debacle the court order has brought for Achuthanandan. Former minister R Balakrishnan Pillai, who was imprisoned by the Supreme Court for corruption in 2011, thanks to an 16-year-long, relentless legal war of Achuthanandan, could not hide his happiness when the court order came.
“This is a setback for the evil soul (Dushtan) called Achuthanandan,” he said. “Isn’t it evil when a senior leader of the party tries to send his own secretary into the prisonIJ” Pillai, the only former minister in Kerala to be imprisoned for graft, asked. Union Minister Vayalar Ravi said it was the people in Pinarayi’s own party who had been trying to crucify him.
Kerala BJP president V Muraleedharan viewed the court verdict as a result of an unholy understanding between the Congress and the CPI(M) which could show its practical import in national politics after the coming lok Sabha elections. State Congress president Ramesh Chennithala called the court verdict as “unnatural”.