The CPI(M) central committee (CC) did not take any action against Kerala Opposition leader and party veteran V.S. Achuthanandan even though the state leadership had sought strong disciplinary action against him for his repeated public statements hurting the party’s interests.
The CC on Sunday concluded its two-day crucial meeting without taking any concrete step to tame the ever-widened factional feud in the party’s Kerala unit or to save the party from the heat after the brutal murder of party rebel T.P. Chandrashekharan. Instead, in what could be seen as the CPI(M) central leadership losing its hold on the crisis-stuck Kerala unit, the CC has asked the CPI(M) Kerala state secretariat and the state committee to have more discussions on the controversies there.
There was strong resentment among the CC members from other states against the Kerala leadership for not taking any action against Idukki district secretary M.M. Mony, whose controversial speech boasting of the CPI(M)’s involvement in political murders had even hit the party’s anti-Trinamul campaign in West Bengal on the grounds of the attacks against CPI(M) cadres. Even though the politburo and the CC have asked the Kerala leadership to remove Mr Mony from the state committee, they did not set a timeframe for this.
When the CC discussed the recent developments in Kerala, Mr Achuthanandan also got a fair chance to place his case.
The octogenarian leader reiterated his views that he had already expressed in his two letters to party general secretary Prakash Karat and senior leader Sitaram Yechury. Sources said that he repeated his demand to recast the state leadership criticising the functioning of the state secretary and his bête noire Pinarayi Vijayan.
Mr Achuthanandan’s smiling face after the meeting was a clear signal that he had succeeded in convincing the CC to probe the situations that led him to violate the party rules before contemplating disciplinary action against him.