This exactly is the danger the CPI(M) is flirting with right now. It all began with an editorial published in the CPI(M) mouthpiece Deshabhimani welcoming cooperation with the Kerala Congress(Mani), which has just left the Congress-led United Democratic Front(UDF) and decided to sit as a separate block in the State Assembly.

The editorial has created quite a flutter in the Left Democratic Front circles. The Communist Party of India (CPI) has lost no time in denouncing the move. CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran is on record that the editorial does not represent the view of either the CPI or the LDF.

Kanam frowned upon the move and asked the author to read the articles written by veteran Marxist late EMS Namboodiripad in Deshabhimani itself from 1986 onwards.

The articles had been written by EMS soon after the expulsion from the CPI(M) of M V Raghavan who had suggested a tie-up with the Indian Union Muslim league. “They will give clarity to the author of the Deshabhimani article,” said Kanam. EMS had said that there could be no tie-up with a communal party like the Muslim League. And the principled stand taken by him had fetched handsome dividends in the electoral battles fought during that period.

Kanam is a on a strong wicket when he opposes any tie-up with the KC(M) or the Muslim League. Mani is corrupt and he does not cease to be so because he has left the UDF, Kanam pointed out, adding that the Deshabhimani editorial is at odds with the decisions taken by the CPI(M)’s last congress and the plenum themselves, which had opposed any alliance or tie-up with corrupt and communal parties.

Kanam added that the LDF does not need any mediators to talk to the minorities. In any case, the LDF is yet to have a discussion on such collaborations, Kanam pointed out voicing the CPI’s vehement opposition to any tie-up with either the IUML or the KC(M).

Kanam also ridiculed the charge that the CPI was feeling threatened by the possible entry of the KC(M) into the LDF. The CPI, he said, had won 19 out of the 27 seats it had contested in the last Assembly elections as against the 6 out of 15 won by the KC(M). There is simply no way the KC(M) can pose a threat to the CPI, Kanam asserted.

True, there is a need to expand the LDF. But that should be done by reaching out to the deprived and downtrodden masses and not by inviting corrupt parties like the KC(M) or communal parties like the IUML.

Kanam has a valid point. If the IUML were to be included in the LDF, then the CPI(M)’s decision to expel MV Raghavan in the eighties was a political mistake, and would militate against the famous EMS line of ruling out any truck with corrupt and communal parties.

The CPI’s stance has the backing of CPI(M) stalwart V S Achuthanandan as well. In his reaction to the CPI(M) state leadership’s overtures to the KC(M) and the IUML, VS said the KC(M) was ‘notoriously corrupt’ while the Muslim League was communal.

VS’s unequivocal support to the CPI’s stance amounts to a strong rebuff to the CPI(M) state leadership’s stand that there is nothing wrong in ‘cooperating’ with the KC(M) on issues of people’s interest. Any kind of collaboration with corrupt parties would seriously erode the LDF’s commitment to battle corruption, which, in turn, would cause loss of popular support to the LDF. That is the reason why VS and the CPI are firmly opposing any such tie-ups. The sooner the CPI(M) state leadership realises this and abandons the policy of cooperation with the corrupt and the communal, the better it would be for the party and the LDF. (IPA Service)