After Fourth World, the face-off: how VS vs Vijayan will spoil party

But when the implications of Parameswaran’s repackaged version sunk in, the party reacted as it’s always been famous for.

Parameswaran was purged: for hinting that the party should realign its foundations to assimilate the Fourth World, for pushing the unthinkable—a partyless, classless, participatory democracy.

That was a year ago.

Yet, this trashed theory is the only fig leaf that the comrades are left with to lend even a sliver of intellectual aura to its Malappuram meet—vital to any Red conclave.

Without that, the meet would be exposed for what it’s predicted to be: the final round in the no-holds-barred battle between its two heavyweight Politburo members—state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and Opposition leader and CM-in-waiting V S Achuthanandan, better known as VS.

The Kerala Red camp is not new to such stand-offs, famously including the E M S Namboodiripad-A K Gopalan tiffs. But unlike those, this one hardly has anything to do with ideology, theories or splitting of semantic hairs.

The ammunition is more mundane, and battle preparations have been on for some time. All of the recent Area and District elections of the party in the run-up to the Malappuram meet were furiously fought, and centred on just one issue: choosing between Vijayan and VS.

And at least VS might see some shades of Frankenstein in this story. It was he who originally pitchforked Vijayan, a tough-talking, no-nonsense man from Kannur, communism’s north Kerala cradle, to the state secretary’s chair.

VS hoped to use Vijayan to take on the party’s CITU lobby that was gunning for him. But Vijayan declared his independence, consolidated his own support base, and veered completely out of the VS orbit. And the battlelines were drawn, particularly so after VS found himself being sidelined in the party since 1996 after he nearly made it to the CM’s chair but for his shock defeat in the Assembly polls. The VS faction says they have a single-point agenda in Malappuram: get rid of Pinarayi Vijayan and his three chief acolytes M A Baby, Thomas Isaac (VS blames him for that poll defeat) and P Sasi from the party’s state secretariat. ‘‘It is now or never. If we fail this time, we would need to wait three more years, and VS can’t wait,’’ says one of his close supporters.

Vijayan, on his part, has publicly dared them for a confrontation. For him, another stint as secretary is a necessity. For, with the expected rout of the Congress next year, there would be virtually no stopping VS from taking over as CM next year. And a Malappuram debacle would mean wilderness, for years.

In the event, accusations are flying thick and fast, many hitting below the belt. The VS side accuse Vijayan of playing to non-Marxist ideas like the Fourth World, sidling up to international capitalists (read well-healed Gulf-based Malayali businessmen), jetting abroad too often—and even vacationing with his family in such bourgeoise places as Singapore.

They also blame Vijayan and his acolytes for the CPM’s political decision to go easy first on Muslim League’s P K Kunhalikutty, when Kerala’s most hyped sex scam first broke during the Left Government of E K Nayanar.

The CPM subsequently launched a major agitation for Kunhalikutty’s scalp after the scam resurfaced last October which finally led to Kunhalikutty resigning as industries minister in the current Congress-led state government.

VS pronounced that he was not party to the CPM’s decision not to prosecute Kunhalikutty while his party ruled Kerala, obviously targeting the party secretary. Vijayan lost no time to hit back, asserting that VS too was very much involved in it. Neither won the argument, but the party ended up as a laughing stock in the state.

What adds to the Malappuram suspense is VS’s reputation for hatchet jobs: he had engineered the infamous organisational purge in the party’s Palakkad conference in 1998 to get rid of heavyweights like M M Lawrence, Ravindranath and others.

Watching from the sidelines, other senior leaders hope, even believe, that the face-off won’t split the party. ‘‘They are keen only on a complete takeover. And the loser can’t afford to get off the party structure,’’ says a senior CPM leader.

Besides, the combatants don’t have the charisma or strength to pull any substantial section of the Red ranks on their own steam.

But yes, the winner will take it all. And the loser, too, is likely to be rehabilitated. ‘‘Whatever happens, and whoever wins, we hope to have a consensual settlement at the end,’’ says a senior CPM leader. The real loser, however, could be the party’s main engine, its politburo, which may end up badly hit.

There had been frantic outcries for its intervention before things reached a head. And even now, a senior CPM leader said, it may just watch and let things evolve by themselves in Malappuram. ‘‘At best, it would be only a moral intervention,’’ said the leader.

He points to two reasons: One, the politburo itself is bracing for an imminent change of guard at the top that might take a bit of time to stabilise. More importantly, Bengal and Kerala units make up the party’s numbers, and they know it only too well.