Pinarayi Vijayan will be CM again, predicts Congress’s Mani Shankar Aiyar as he hails Kerala’s CPM govt

Aiyar said, “It is ironic that the only state in India in which progress has been made in Gandhiji’s direction is the one ruled by the Marxist-Leninist party of India. I don’t know whether this is a compliment or an insult, but I do regret very much the absence of my party colleagues on this occasion, which is a state occasion and therefore a national occasion.”

“In the presence of the Chief Minister (Pinarayi Vijayan), who I’m sure will be the next Chief Minister, I renew my plea that in order to reinforce Kerala as the best Panchayati Raj state in the country, the state law should be amended on the basis of the experience we have…,” he said.

Calling Kerala India’s leader in Panchayati Raj, Aiyar said the state was “ironically achieving more than anyone else on the expectations of a Congress Prime Minister who’s no more with us, the late Sri Rajiv Gandhi. But while Kerala is the first state in Panchayati Raj in practice, it is only the second best in the law.”

“I am afraid there is no champion for Panchayati Raj left in the country. So, therefore, I have to fall at your feet, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and say, ‘Please, sir, pick up the baton that the Congress has dropped.’”

Last week, Congress Working Committee member and former Leader of Opposition in the Kerala Assembly, Ramesh Chennithala, had urged those invited to the conference organised by the Pinarayi Vijayan government to reconsider their participation. In an open letter, he had said, “The conference appears less an academic forum and more a carefully choreographed effort aimed at reclaiming moral legitimacy for an incumbent government whose record on democratic freedoms, institutional integrity, and public accountability is under sustained criticism and increasingly viewed as authoritarian.”