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Journalism of Courage
Top CPM hardliner VS Achuthanandan will be sworn in as Kerala’s new CM on Thursday. In a consensual arrangement brokered by the Politburo, the Home portfolio, customarily the CM’s lookout, will be taken away from VS and handed to a powerful acolyte of his liberal bete noire and party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.
This is the first time in the state since 1982 that the CM will be denied charge of the Home Ministry, which the Vijayan faction had refused to part with during the Politburo’s mediation efforts. VS will also need to lead a cabinet heavily populated by Vijayan’s lieutenants, including some he had publicly deprecated.
The CPI(M) nominees for cabinet berths include Paloli Mohammed Kutty, the Left Front convenor who was earlier tipped for the CM’s job before VS bounced back after the official Vijayan faction got him purged from the candidates’ list this poll, Central Committee member PK Sreemathi, State Secretariat members Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who is tipped to be the Home Minister, Thomas Isaac who is likely to hold the Finance portfolio, AK Balan, MA Baby, CITU leader Elamaram Kareem, PK Gurudasan, ex-minister S Sarma and former Assembly Speaker M Vijayakumar.
Except the last three, all other CPM nominees have been taking strong anti-VS positions. What might make things tougher for VS is that his two strongest supporters — Chandrachudan of the RSP and K E Ismail of the CPI — could not make it to the Assembly this poll.
