Impasse over PM SHRI continues in Kerala’s Left Front as CPI reiterates demand for withdrawal
A day after Education Minister and senior CPI(M) leader V Sivankutty defended the decision to join the central scheme, the CPI held its ground, saying that even after a meeting with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, ‘nothing had changed’.
“No solution has arrived at for the issues we have raised,” CPI state secretary Binoy Viswam said after his closed-door discussions with Vijayan in Alappuzha. “The party will take a decision at the appropriate time.”
Differences between Kerala’s ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) and junior ally, the Communist Party of India, over implementing the Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) schemecontinue to play out in public, with the latter still pressing the state to withdraw from the project.
A day after Education Minister and senior CPI(M) leader V. Sivankutty defended the decision to join the scheme, the CPI held its ground, saying that even after a meeting with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, “nothing had changed.”
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“No solution has arrived at for the issues we have raised,” CPI state secretary Binoy Viswam said after his closed-door discussions with Vijayan in Alappuzha. “The party will take a decision at the appropriate time.”
The CPI stirred up a storm in the ruling Left Democratic Front last week when it opposed the state government’s decision to sign an MoU with the Union Government for rolling out PM SHRI in Kerala schools. The move marked a sharp shift from the CPI(M)’s stand for three years, and the CPI is upset over the reversal and the decision to keep junior allies such as itself in the dark.
In Delhi, CPI general secretary D Raja briefed the media on the Alappuzha meeting.
“The state secretary also met the chief minister and discussed the whole issue of the National Education Policy, 2020, and the MoU for the PM SHRI,” he said. “During the meeting with Chief Minister Vijayan, our party reiterated our stand. The LDF government should withdraw from the MoU and until then it should be frozen. It should not be taken up for implementation.”
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Raja reiterated the party’s opposition to NEP 2020 – the Modi government’s controversial education policy. Until the MoU was signed, the LDF government in Kerala viewed the policy as a “tool to advance a right-wing agenda”.
The CPI, Raja said, cannot go with NEP, “which is a reactionary and dangerous policy of the BJP.”
“The NEP is to promote commercialisation, communalisation and centralisation of education. We cannot succumb to the pressure to accept this policy,” he said.
The CPI(M), on its part, argues that the government signed the MoU only to ensure that Kerala’s school education is not deprived of the Rs 1,500 crore aid from the Union Government, withheld due to the state’s earlier reluctance to join the scheme.
“No solution has arrived at for the issues we have raised,” CPI state secretary Binoy Viswam said after his closed-door discussions with Vijayan in Alappuzha. “The party will take a decision at the appropriate time.”
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