K Jayaprakash
Since its split in 1964, the Communist Party of India, or CPI, has been facing the allegation of being a right-leaning left party. On several occasions, it proved the allegation was right. In historical moments, when people expected the party in the Left squad, it clung to the Right wing like a limpet.
Perhaps, felt with the identity and ideology crisis and denied partnership in the national election by the Indira Gandhi-led Congress, CPI ended its comradeship with the Right wing in 1979 and aligned with the Left forces.
Its ripple reached Kerala shores too. Chief Minister P K Vasudevan Nair, a veteran CPI leader, headed a ministry comprising non-Left parties, put his papers to pave the way for strengthening left unity. Since then the party has been at the forefront of Left-wing politics.
In Kerala, CPI was led by secretaries who were ethical and devoted political figures. The legacy continued till C K Chandrappen, an upright politician, idealogue, and intellectual of high caliber – all rolled into one. Things have changed with Kanam Rajendran having come at the helm.
Deviating from the path of his predecessors, Kanam tried to make the party his fiefdom and cultivated cheerleaders and drumbeaters around him. This has further fuelled factional fights in the party.
The unexpected demise of Kanam elevated his close confidant, former minister and MP Binoy Viswam to the coveted post in the party. Though claimed to be a relentless fighter for democracy and the Left ideology, Binoy Viswam has proved that he treads on the path travelled by Kanam by offering the Rajya Sabha seat allotted by LDF to the party to his sidekick P P Suneer, a State assistant secretary of CPI.
At this political juncture, a leader who can effectively intervene in discussions and debates at the House should have been nominated to the post. Undoubtedly, not even Benony Viswam does believe that Suneer, who is not a known leader even among the party workers, let alone to the public, can play his new role well. Annie Raja, a national executive committee member of the party and general secretary of its women’s wing, would have been a natural choice. It would have added more ammo to the Opposition’s fight in the Rajya Sabha.
Miss Raja is a familiar face in the national capital and elsewhere in the country in the agitations to strengthen the fast-thinning democratic fabric of the nation and to protect the rights of workers, women, children, Dalits, Adivasis, and other oppressed classes
The CPI central leadership rarely dictates the names of candidates in parliament or Assembly elections. It just ratifies the names sent by the State units. In the case of Miss Raja, especially, the chance is next to nothing given that she is the wife of party general secretary D Raja.
CPI seems to follow suit with CPM in the self–destruction of the party in Kerala, the last outpost of both Communist parties in the country. While Pinarayi Vijayan is the chief architect of the design of the destruction of the CPM, Kanam started it in CPI, and now Binoy Viswam shoulders the `responsibility’.
What is more shocking is that not even a feeble voice rises against this in either party. Both the parties, particularly CPM, have been passing through their worst turbulent phase of the recent past. No light is seen at the end of the tunnel.
Cry, beloved comrades
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