CPI(M) panel spares VS with public censure

In what is widely being seen as a victory of sorts for CPI(M) veteran V.S. Achutnanandan, the party Polit Bureau and Central committee have rejected the State leadership’s strident demand for his expulsion from the party and limited its action against the senior-most leader of the CPI(M) in Kerala to a public censure.

The CPI(M) Polit Bureau and Central committee, which concluded their meetings in New Delhi on Sunday, decided to let matters by and large be after Mr. Achuthanandan self-critically admitted before the Central committee that some of his recent remarks and actions (particularly those relating to Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T.P. Chandrasekharan’s killing) were incorrect and could have been avoided.

The Polit Bureau and the Central committee, which met exclusively to discuss issues relating to the CPI(M) in Kerala, also, in a way, upheld his demand for party intervention in the issues arising from Chandrasekharan’s murder and former Idukki district secretary M.M. Mani’s startling disclosures about a series of killings carried out by the party in the district in the early 1980s by deciding to institute an inner-party inquiry into the background of the RMP leader’s killing and asking the State leadership to initiate sterner action against Mr. Mani, who has already been removed as CPI(M) Idukki district secretary. The Central leadership’s decisions show that the views of the middle roaders in the Polit Bureau and the Central committee, particularly those from West Bengal and other States, had prevailed despite the dominant section of the State party pitching for Mr. Achuthanandan’s expulsion from the party’s primary membership or his demotion from the Central committee. However, whether this would prove a long-lasting solution to the organisational woes of the party in Kerala remains to be seen.

The first indication that the CPI(M) Central leadership would be willing to go half-way to see Mr. Achuthanandan’s points became available when CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat invited Mr. Achuthanandan over for a one-on-one on Sunday morning and later had a three-way dialogue by bringing in CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. Still later, Mr. Achuthanandan was invited over to the formal meeting of the Polit Bureau to be told what the Polit Bureau proposed to do in the matter.

During the lunch-break, Mr. Achuthanandan told reporters that some of his demands had been accepted by the Central committee, which seemed to suggest that he was agreeable to the Polit Bureau’s decisions. He also cancelled his planned return to Kerala in the evening and decided to return to the final session of the CPI(M) Central committee meeting where the Polit Bureau’s recommendations on the actions to be taken were formally adopted.