With the CPI-M Central Committee endorsing the decision on the suspension of Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan from the party polit bureau, the chances of getting an early respite have become bleak for the two senior members.
The two-day meeting of the Central Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, ratified the move to suspend these two senior leaders for indulging in public spat.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, which came to an end on Tuesday, party general secretary Prakash Karat said the Central Committee would take stock of the situation in its next meeting, which had not been scheduled yet.
Referring to the Indo-US nuclear agreement, he said that the Central Committee was of the opinion that the Hyde Act passed by the US Congress had set terms and conditions which were not acceptable for the nuclear cooperation agreement with the US.
“The UPA government should not try to clinch an agreement by compromising on vital issues or by trying to avoid such issues in the 123 bilateral agreement,” he said.
Pratibha Patil
Endorsing the polit bureau decision to support the UPA Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil, the Central Committee criticised the BJP for putting up Bhairon Singh Shekhawat as an independent, when it was a “fact” that he had been a lifelong adherent of the RSS and a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party .
The committee noted that food prices continued to remain high even though the government had claimed that the rate of inflation was coming down.
The Wholesale Price Index for the week ending May 26 came down to 4.9 per cent, but the inflation rate for primary articles remained high at 8.6 per cent.