Crisis management skills of the CPI(M) national leadership will be put to a severe test in the days to come, as veteran leader and former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has virtually dared the party to take action against him with an open tirade against the State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.
From available indications, the CPI(M) Central leadership has chosen not to take immediate cognisance of Mr. Achuthanandan's outburst against Mr. Vijayan, which has had a definitive, though muted, impact on the State party and its current leadership. Although some leaders closely aligned with Mr. Vijayan and the dominant faction in the State CPI(M) have tried to defend him, the CPI(M) State secretary has been quite restrained in his response. He has publicly told everyone not to join issue with Mr. Achuthanandan, possibly as advised by the Central leaders.
But that is only for the time being. The coming days could turn out to be crucial for the State party and Mr. Achuthanandan himself as the dominant faction is not likely to take his accusations lying down. They are likely to make the first move to settle scores once the Neyyattinkara Assembly by-election, due on June 2, is over.
Barely a month ago, the State CPI(M) leadership was a picture of confidence. It had successfully hosted the 20th party Congress and also ensured that Mr. Achuthanandan, for long a headache for the dominant section in the State party, did not return to the Polit Bureau. But the brutal murder of party dissident T.P. Chandrasekharan on May 4 ripped open the latent fissures, giving Mr. Achuthanandan the opportunity to hit back at the leadership with a vehemence not seen in recent times. He went to the extent of likening party State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan to the late S.A. Dange, who was the general secretary of the undivided Communist Party of India in 1964. He contended that Mr. Vijayan's depiction of Chandrasekharan and his comrades as ‘traitors' was very similar to Dange's description of the 32 leaders, including himself, who had walked out of the CPI national council in 1964 as ‘enemies of the working class.' The CPI later expelled Dange.
Mr. Achuthanandan's attempt was clearly to add an ideological dimension to the massive public anger over Chandrasekharan's murder and embarrass the State CPI(M) leadership, which is already on the defensive with the special investigation team probing the murder nabbing a few and zeroing in on other elements allegedly connected with the party at the local level, that too on the eve of a crucial Assembly by-election.
The hard core support that Mr. Achuthanandan commands in the party organisation is marginal, but the potential impact of the emotive issues that he has raised is hard to ignore. And that is precisely what makes this a tough crisis that both the State and Central leadership of the party might find difficult to handle.
