Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI-M] State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, on Tuesday, denied chances of the party extending an invitation to Water Resources Minister P.J. Joseph to return to the Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Mr. Vijayan’s stance came a day after LDF convener Vaikom Viswan hinted at an open welcome to Mr. Joseph, who had stayed away from Monday’s Cabinet meeting in the capital. It was also reported that he had held talks with CPI(M) Central committee member T.M. Thomas Isaac in Alappuzha.
“We have no intentions to invite anyone who is a part of the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF),” Mr. Vijayan said at Nadapuram in Vadakara on the sidelines of his Kerala Raksha Yathra. Denying that the LDF was trying to cash in on the unrest within the KC(M) and the UDF, Mr. Vijayan said, ‘we have given no importance to what is happening within the UDF.’
“It is an internal matter of the UDF. It is only natural that there will be squabbles within a coalition before the elections. That does not mean we are banking hopes that they will split from the UDF and come to us,” Mr. Vijayan said. Finance Minister K.M. Mani should separate his party politics and seat-sharing issues from the core public issue of protecting the settler farmers from the K. Kasturirangan report, he said.
Asked about his party’s expectations of recapturing the Vadakara Lok Sabha seat in this general election, he said, ‘there is no doubt about victory.’ “The Revolutionary Marxist Party is not an issue at all,” he said.
