Thomas Chandy has resigned as Transport Minister after a drama lasting several days, but he has done so leaving a sharp divide in the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF).
The differing perceptions of the CPI(M) and CPI reached a point of no return on Wednesday with the four CPI Ministers boycotting the Cabinet meeting and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan mounting a thinly-veiled attack on the CPI for the stubborn stand it had taken in the entire row. “This is never done. Under no circumstance should anyone stay away from Cabinet meetings, which are meant to discuss all issues,” he said.
The Chief Minister and the CPI leadership have been at loggerheads for days now over the demand for Mr. Chandy’s resignation. Even before the LDF State committee met here late last week to discuss the issue, the CPI leadership had made it clear that it would not settle for anything less than Mr. Chandy’s resignation.
At the LDF panel meeting, CPI State secretary Kanam Rajendran had even engaged Mr. Chandy in a verbal duel on the various allegations against him. The meeting had to, finally, authorise the Chief Minister to take the appropriate decision in the matter after hearing the NCP leadership.
Despite the relentless attack on Mr. Chandy, particularly from the visual media, the Chief Minister had taken care to ensure that all the legal and political processes and formalities were gone through before the final decision on Mr. Chandy’s continuation was taken. However, by Wednesday morning, the CPI leadership had run out of patience as became evident from its decision to ask the party’s Ministers to keep off from the Cabinet meeting.
Barring Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekharan, who had sent in a note to the Chief Minister midway through the Cabinet meeting informing their decision not to attend the Cabinet meeting which was being attended by Mr. Chandy as well, no other leader was ready to speak to the media. Mr. Chandrasekharan was at pains to explain that their decision did not amount to a breakdown in the collective responsibility of the Cabinet.
“My letter to the Chief Minister should go to show that there is no breakdown in the Cabinet’s collective responsibility,” he told waiting reporters.
The CPI leadership’s anger at Mr. Chandy has to do with two major mistakes that he committed: his attack on the stand taken by the CPI at a reception accorded to the jatha led by CPI State secretary Kanam Rajendran and his attack on CPI general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy, accusing him of corruption. The wedge that Mr. Chandy has left behind in the ruling alliance would take quite a while to be bridged if one were to go by what leaders of the two parties say off the record.
