Party hangover

On one side have been the hardliners claiming to swear by the pre-revised 1964 dictums and brooking no neo-liberal dilution 8212; or 8216;8216;deviation8217;8217; 8212; yet slowly, painfully slowly, beginning to heed the wake up call. The other has been a gaggle of half-hearted liberals or 8216;8216;realists8217;8217; who think the other side is best consigned to the ideological attic if the party is to remain relevant.

Yet, VS Achuthanandan, chief minister-probable and Politburo member leading the state8217;s hardline pack, could not have made it back after being abruptly purged from the party8217;s candidate list this Assembly poll, unless the Politburo believed that what he represented did matter.

Even if it had pushed that decision down the state committee8217;s reluctant throat to avert a possible rebellion. If sources close to VS are to be believed, he intends to impress the Politburo that it needs to endorse a few pet premises before he takes up the CM8217;s job.

According to them: 8216;8216;These are no preconditions, demands or inflexible positions, but a few crucial clarifications so that VS would not be hamstrung after he takes over as CM, and his credibility won8217;t be impacted.8217;8217; In simpler terms, VS would want the Politburo to help keep party rivals controlling its state apparatus off his back, and give himself the elbow room that he needs to run the Government 8212; even if his cabinet is likely to have more acolytes of his reformist opponent and state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, than his own. More significantly, VS would need to balance the burden of his carefully hyped USP as the last hardliner standing, while carrying the party brief to implement the inevitable Buddhadeb prescriptions.

That might appear tough to expect of a man who had been hogging headlines fighting everything from letting bourgeois Microsoft train Kerala school kids to availing development loans from ADB or allowing a Dubai government agency to set up the Smart City, Kerala8217;s Rs 1500 crore dream IT hub. But the fact is, there have been clear signs of an emerging near-synergy between him and his reformist opponents lately, however cosmetic.

VS is now talking more about Kerala8217;s swelling army of the unemployed and the need to bring in investment, open up more jobs. He has also been saying how pro-development he is and how he has been misunderstood. Pinarayi Vijayan, on the other hand, has been coming closer to VS8217;s hardline premises in many issues. That includes on the need to realign the economy more towards the traditional, farm and industrial sectors.

8216;8216;The state should be more concerned about its industrial and agriculture sectors that can provide a whole lot more jobs than sectors like IT,8217;8217; Vijayan had declared soon after the poll results were out on Thursday. This was the same man who courted hardline ridicule not long ago for encouraging CPI M outfits to put their money in many new age, high investment, businesses promising quick returns but with clearly negligible employment potential.

NO more predictable are the Left8217;s political re-adjustments post-poll. This is the first poll where the Left had approached with open backing of the same fringe outfits that it had always condemned as communal.

The People8217;s Democratic Party that it had criticised became its strongest extremist allies this time, helping it to successfully breach usually unassailable Muslim vote banks. The other ally that helped spell the difference between victory and defeat in several constituencies was the Jamaat-e-Islami, which the CPI M had considered to be the Muslim version of RSS. The

CPIM8217;s claims that its deal with the two outfits involved no give and take is now begging for takers, even amidst its euphoric poll success.

So Kerala is waiting for the new government8217;s honeymoon to get over to know how it manages to balance its act 8212; and its inherited dichotomies.