The ongoing students’ agitation in the Kerala Law Academy Law College is all set to take a dramatic turn, posing a challenge to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Congress for diametrically opposite reasons.
The stir is all set to move away from the gates of the institution to the Secretariat with the KPCC planning to hold an indefinite fast to secure the resignation of the Law Academy principal Lakshmi Nair and a resolution to several irregularities related to alleged harassment in internal assessment of students, doubts over affiliation and misuse of government land. The KPCC agitation will give the stir a well-defined political turn, if it has not already got one with the ongoing indefinite hunger stir of Bharatiya Janata Party leader V. Muraleedharan.
The CPI(M)’s attempts is dodge taking a firm stand on the demand for the resignation of the college principal and other allied issues because it does not want it to end up handing over the political advantage to the BJP. The ongoing backroom parleys between CPI(M) leaders and Academy director N. Narayanan Nair have set off speculation about the party’s slanted moves, especially in the context of the academy director board decision against Ms. Nair’s resignation.
But the main hassle for the party is actually from the CPI, the second largest partner in the Left Democratic Front, and its feeder organisations AISF and the AIYF. The CPI has been even otherwise taking divergent positions on several other issues, but its stand on the developments in the academy is proving to be a headache for the CPI(M).
The KPCC’s decision to take over the leadership of the agitation is driven by its assessment of the BJP’s move to dig in its feet in the constituencies in the Capital district. It hopes to ensure that it stays in the track by taking up the Law Academy issue which has by now got the support of the entire students in the college.
As far as the BJP is concerned, the Law Academy agitation presents the party with the opportunity to make a break through in campus politics, which is perceived to be the feeder for any political party. The agitating students, however, continue to be optimistic about a fair resolution that would primarily address the academic issues they have been raising.
