THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The raging debate in the state committee meeting and the pressure exerted by other LDF constituents seem to have prompted the CPM to take swift action for winning back the trust of minorities.
The State Cabinet on Tuesday decided to recognise 41 schools in four districts of Malabar; 30 of them in Malappuram district alone.
According to sources, a good majority of these schools are run by individual Muslims or Muslim organisations.
Those close to the Kanthapuram AP faction are learnt to have gained an upper hand when the new schools were picked. Sources said that the application procedure had been tailor-made to suit the schools of government’s choice.
The backlash of minority communities was one of the major reasons for the poor performance of the LDF in the recent local body elections.
The CPM state committee, the CPI state council and the RSP state committee meetings have identified the minority factor as the reason for poll debacle.
Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, while announcing the decision to sanction 41 new schools, said that these schools were for the uplift of the minority community which was ignored by the previous UDF Government.
Apart from the schools in Malappuram, the list contains one school in Kasargod, three in Kozhikode and seven in Palakkad.
Of the new schools, only two are in municipal areas - one in Manjeri and the other in Ponnani. The rest of the schools are in the grama panchayat areas.
By framing the procedure of application in a particular way, the government ensured that only those managements which the government prefer could apply for the new school.
The DPI had published a list of local body wards in five educationally backward districts of Malabar where the new unaided high schools were proposed to be established.
Though, the earlier decision was to identify the localities in six districts of Malabar, where the extreme social and educational backwardness among the Muslim community were noticed, the list did not contain any areas of Kannur and Wayanad districts.