Click to play videoNew Delhi: Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan returned to Kerala on Sunday and accepted the Communist Party of India-Marxist’s decision to remove him from the politburo and back his rival, state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.
The CPI-M central committee, after a two-day meeting, decided that Vijayan "was not involved in any corrupt practice whatsoever" and said the party would fight for him "politically and legally”.
The committee, which had met to find a solution to the bitter factionalism in Kerala, chided Achuthanandan for speaking out against the party line and asked him to “fulfill his responsibilities as the Chief Minister and as a leader of the party".
Vijayan was given a clean chit. "The central committee is of the view that comrade Pinarayi Vijayan, secretary of the Kerala State Committee and the Electricity Minister in the then LDF government between 1996-98, was not involved in any corrupt practice whatsoever. The central committee reiterated that the party will fight the case politically and legally," said politburo member M K Pandhe.
But the move to act only against Achuthanandan was not a unanimous one. Sources tell CNN-IBN many members of the party urged for a re-look at the corruption case in which Vijayan is an accused and demanded that he step down as state secretary till he is cleared of all charges.
This was vetoed, as the party leadership believes doing so would compromise its publicly stated position that the corruption charges against Vijayan were politically. Besides Vijayan enjoys a brute majority in the Kerala unit.
Achuthanandan though cannot be ignored. Many members from Kerala, including some key ministers of his Cabinet, demanded at the central committee meeting that he step down as Chief Minister but many leaders from West Bengal supported. Achuthanandan has immense popularity among the people.
Achuthanandan has refused to accept the party line and has been demanding that Vijayan be removed as state secretary after he has been named an accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Rs 374 crore SNC Lavalin corruption case.
The central committee said the “Kerala State Committee should unify the entire party" in the state, but Achuthanandan and Vijayan are unlikely to patch up though Assembly elections are just over a year away.
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