Kerala Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan faced flak in the CPI(M) state unit when a document reviewing the LDF Government’s performance found lapses on his part in implementing the party’s 2008 guidelines for governance.
According to CPI(M) sources, the review document was presented in the party’s state secretariat, which met here two days ago ahead of the ongoing state committee meet.
The document held that while most of the ministers performed within the framework of the guidelines, the CM did not follow it seriously.
However, some strongly-worded references against the CM were later deleted from the document after Mr. Achuthanandan raised strong objections to those remarks with the party’s central leadership.
Ever since the LDF Government came to power four years ago, Mr. Achuthanandan has repeatedly come under attack from the party set-up, controlled by the faction led by the state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, his bitter rival in the party.
Last year, the octogenarian leader was dropped from the CPI(M) Polit Bureau after he declined to toe the party’s official line in a corruption case relating to a power project contract of 1997, in which Mr. Vijayan figured as an accused for being the electricity minister then.
The current round of troubles for the Kerala CM pertains to the guidelines for governance adopted by the party in August 2008.
The review document also held that Mr. Achuthanandan not only failed to carry out the guidelines in right earnest but some of his open critical comments on it came in handy for the “rightist media” to run down the government, the sources said.
The party document further said the position of the Chief Minister was exploited by coalition partners like CPI and RSP to secure their interests, they said.
