In red, down South

The CPM8217;s Kerala unit has acquired a well-deserved reputation for making more news for the opposition within. In that sense, the latest turbulence touched off by Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan8217;s recent sally against his detractors in the party is unspectacular. There has been little courtesy among comrades ever since the Left Democratic Front came to power in Kerala in 2006 and even before that. The 2006 election itself became the story not so much of the CPM8217;s subduing of the Congress, as of the octogenarian 8220;VS8221; managing to pip his archrival, Pinarayi Vijayan, to the post of chief minister, even though Vijayan8217;s faction gained the upper hand in the party8217;s nominees for the LDF ministry. Yet, as the Kerala CPM turns on itself again, the wrangling seems to speak of more encompassing Left discomforts.

For all the specific personality quirks that feed it, the VS-Vijayan feud, which had even led to the expulsion of both from the party politburo in 2007 8212; they were reinstated subsequently 8212; can be roughly translated into a struggle between the moderates/pragmatists and the traditionalists/hardliners. Comrade VS has been a chief minister markedly different from his counterpart and party colleague in West Bengal. While Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has reshaped the CPM government to better seize the opportunities thrown up in a liberalising economy, critics have found it easy to dub the backward class leader as the 8220;anti-development hero8221;.

The awkwardness of the party with its time is also mirrored in the CPM8217;s self-styled conundrum in Tamil Nadu. A rift is said to be widening within the Democratic Progressive Alliance Front because the CPM finds it difficult to cohabit with the DMK after the latter8217;s vote for the nuclear deal at the Centre last month. In most states, politics has returned to usual after the trust vote at the Centre; local compulsions have once again risen to the fore. One way of looking at the Left8217;s problem with the DMK would be to see it as precious ideological consistency. But in times when the Left is also seen to be doing deals with markedly de-ideologised forces, it is probably just another sign of Left irresolution.