Action against VS: CPM treads cautiously

There is a very familiar saying  quoted most often in the study classes conducted for the Communist Party cadre.

“Even if a coconut tree is giving golden coconuts, if it is bending over the top of the house, it should be felled down”.

Time and again, the CPM leadership had quoted this whenever they mulled to sack someone from the party. But the party leaders here these days dread to quote this despite the fact that Achuthanandan is precariously poised towards the official leadership all these years.

The CPM state committee is meeting here again on Sunday. The state secretariat and state ommittee meeting which concluded on Wednesday had referred the issue of disciplinary action to the Central leadership. This includes the likely sacking of personal aides of VS and M M Mani’s removal from the state committee. While the majority of the members want action against VS for his controversial stand on various issues,including the latest on T P Chandrasekharan’s murder, they have to get the approval of the Central Committee in this regard. Even though the official faction is hell bent on punishing VS, it is a known fact that a lightning passes through the spine of the leadership whenever they think about sacking VS.

To the onlookers, it is an enigmatic snake and ladder game being played by VS on the one side and Pinarayi and Co on the other.

His larger than life image as a crusader against corruption, iconic rating as the grand old man who stands for Communist ideals and values and his legendary rise from a humble beginning to the highest realms of the party and government in various capacities in a span of seven long decades of his political life and above all his phenomenal fan following ....reasons are aplenty for the leadership to be extra cautious.

It is a fact that the CPM is still the largest political entity in the state. But what matters in electoral politics is the ability to mobilise votes for the party. Given the fact that Pinarayi Vijayan cannot match the popularity of VS, the party has to tolerate the latter.

“The people need VS but Pinarayi doesn’t want VS in the party anymore,” Berlin Kunhanandan Nair, the onetime CPM think tank and columnist who has been ousted for irking Pinarayi through his speeches and writings rightly said the other day.

The Central leadership is clueless over the likely impact of a stern action against VS. For assuaging the sentiments of the official faction and to clip the wings of VS, it may approve the state committee’s recommendation to sack two of his personal staff . The party would also not appreciate VS gaining any advantage from its punitive action.