THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will lead the ruling LDF in the upcoming assembly election, CPM general secretary M A Baby said on Sunday. But he stopped short of clarifying whether Pinarayi would himself contest the polls. Baby was addressing mediapersons after the party’s two-day central committee meeting.
“The party will discuss Pinarayi’s candidature at the appropriate time. If the LDF wins the election, the next chief minister will also be decided through deliberations. The CPM will not project a chief ministerial candidate — which was the case in the 1957 election as well,” he said. On the party’s two-term limit on contesting elections, Baby said, there is no stipulation that it be mandated for every situation. He accused the Congress of taking a hard Hindutva line even as it blames the CPM of adopting the ideology’s soft version.
“It was the Congress, the Muslim League and the BJP which formed a front in the 1991 assembly and parliament election to defeat the CPM and the LDF in certain constituencies. In the last ten years, Kerala has not witnessed any communal violence.
“Whenever a particular community leader has raised a baseless accusation, the CPM state secretariat had issued strong statements condemning it,” Baby said, in an oblique reference to SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan. “The UDF and the BJP are speaking in the same voice in criticising the chief minister,” he added. The CPM Kerala unit, in its report at the central committee meeting, said its election campaign would be based on the development achievements of the two Pinarayi governments, adding that it will also expose the Congress double standards in opposing the Union government’s anti-Kerala stance.
The West Bengal unit reported that the Congress had not yet decided on a possible understanding with the CPM in the state, and the latter is waiting for the decision. However, it has decided on seat sharing with the CPI (ML) Liberation, which is not part of the left front. In Assam, according to the state unit, it is waiting for a confirmation from the Congress for seat sharing in the assembly election.