Take VS on board for PS post: CPM to Kerala unit

Taking note of V S Achuthanandans apparent displeasure over the appointment of his new political secretary....

Taking note of V S Achuthanandans apparent displeasure over the appointment of his new political secretary,the partys central leadership has indicated that it has asked the state unit controlled by the Pinarayi Vijayan faction to accommodate the views of the Kerala Chief Minister.

The Chief Minister is said to be unhappy with the partys decision to nominate C P Narayanan as his political secretary in place of K N Balagopal,who has become a Rajya Sabha member. Sources said the central leadership has asked the state unit to keep Achuthanandan in the loop on the matter to resolve the tension. The CPM state secretariat has already cleared the name of Narayanan,a member of the state Planning Board and the editor of partys ideological weekly organ Chintha,but on Thursday the Chief Minister openly indicated his displeasure saying no final decision has been taken on the appointment.

The CPM central leadership clearly does not want the tension in Kerala to aggravate at a time when it is pushed to the backfoot by the Bengal unit which virtually torpedoed its grand jail bharo agitation plan over price. Adding to the discomfiture is West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjees missing act at the Politburo meetings.

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With the Bengal unit not coming on board,the party has been forced to nuance its protest plan. A senior Politburo member explained that the term jail bharo was just a figurative expression. According to him,the idea was to mobilise the rank and file to picket Central government offices across the country. Whether the police arrest us or not is their decision, he said.

But the changed stand of the party has not convinced its allies,who feel the agitation should not be allowed to lose steam. It has become clear that the agitation would take the shape of mass picketing in Kerala and West Bengal and court arrest programme elsewhere. In fact,CPM general secretary Prakash Karat went to meet his CPI counterpart A B Bardhan,apparently to explain the difficulty arising out of the Bengal units decision. After the meeting,Bardhan told The Indian Express that jail bharo was just a name given to the movement against the UPA government over price rise.

Bhattacharjees absence at the Politburo meet and the Bengal units decision to not participate in the jail bharo programme comes at a time when differing views are emerging in the party over its strategy to try and create a rift between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress. The question is whether to be soft towards the Congress,which sure will irk Mamata Banerjee,or outrightly take on the government over its policies.