It is a harrowing time for the CPM state unit. Party veteran V S Achuthanandan has further pushed the already-wounded state leadership to the wall provoking it to oust him from the party.
The state unit, which stands discredited following the murder of RMP leader T P Chandrasekharan and the controversial speech on party-sponsored killings by Idukki former district secretary M M Mani, is at its wits end on how to respond to the calculated moves by VS.
VS, who is facing the severe erosion of loyal leaders in the state party leadership, has been going ahead depending on his larger than life image.
The CPM central leadership, which has no influence on the party cadre as well as the masses, knows pretty well that it could not afford to sack a leader like VS who has such a massive fan-following. Besides, Prakash Karat is not getting the support even from his wife and comrade Brinda Karat on the issue of initiating stringent action against the veteran leader.
At the same time, VS knows that he will have to quit as Opposition Leader in the event of the Vigilance filing chargesheet against him in the land donation case. He had already made it clear that he would not continue in the post in the event of a chargesheet being filed against him.
It was part of a ploy that he offered to resign as Opposition Leader in case of a chargesheet filed against him, while party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, who has been the seventh accused in the SNC Lavalin case, continues as the state secretary.
The Politburo, which met for over seven hours on Friday, concluded without arriving at a decision. Politburo member S Ramachandran Pillai, while responding to the query on VS’s latest challenge to the party, told the mediapersons to wait till Sunday evening.
Political observers in New Delhi still believe that the party could not afford to take the extreme step of sacking VS and weaken the party unit in Kerala when it was limping in West Bengal after the poll debacle.