CPI (M) infighting spills out

Central committee meeting to discuss the crisis on Monday

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/NEW DELHI: Though Mamata Banerjee offered some midnight relief to the beleaguered CPI(M) leadership on the Singur imbroglio, in Kerala, the party is hurtling towards serious trouble, with squabbling state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan literally asking chief minister VS Achuthanandan to shut up or leave the party.

The latest flare-up centres around an Asian Development Bank-funded urban development programme, which has exposed the deep divide in the party with at least two ministers openly coming out against the chief minister.  The feud involves the Rs 3,405-crore loan deal that Kerala’s Left government signed with the ADB behind the chief minister’s back, a deal initiated by the erstwhile Congress-led government, but criticized by then Opposition CPI(M).

Vijayan said the CM was very much a party to the decision and when reporters asked about the public disagreement with VS, he reportedly said: “Those who cannot go by party decisions usually leave it”.

“The state secretariat had discussed the issue twice. We had objected to certain provisions in the deal proposed by the previous UDF government. Now those anti-people provisions have been changed. Achuthanandan was present whenever the matter came up for discussion,” Vijayan said. But VS said he was kept in the dark on signing the deal.

The politburo and central committee meeting on January 1 will discuss both the Kerala and Singur issues. The party honchos are worried about the image of the Left government in Kerala, which has taken beating.