VS likely to lose party post

Sources said this was the general spirit of the report submitted by party general secretary Prakash Karat to the CC after the PB deliberated the matter for close to four hours in the morning.

Karat’s report pins  Achuthanandan down for gross indiscipline and how he played a crucial role in the reversal suffered by the party in the Lok Sabha elections. 

It also blames Vijayan for his failure in keeping the party as one unit and bringing factionalism under control.

Saturday’s proceedings of the CC are reported to have ended with a proposal to allow  Achuthanandan to continue as member of the CC and as chief minister.  He is reported to have received some support from the Bengal unit of the party.  The Lavalin issue and party’s deal with PDP had contributed to the debacle, the PB’s assessment is that Achuthanandan’s statements virtually kept these issues alive and helped the United Democratic Front.

Most of the 12 Kerala members among the 85 CC members are with Vijayan who would like to see Mr Achuthanandan being removed from the body. 

The Politburo’s note later circulated in the Central Committee stated that “parliamentary opportunism” was the root cause of the factionalism in the party’s unit in Kerala.

It said putting the interests of the individuals and groups above the collective interests of the party and the struggle to capture the control of the party committees represented “the worst form of factionalism.”

Both Achuthanandan and Vijayan attended the politburo and Central Committee meetings  on Saturday.

Sources said though a section of the Central Committee members had sought stern action against Kerala chief minister, the CPM leadership was worried over the political ramification of disciplining octogenarian Achuthanandan—the senior-most member of the politburo after former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.

Basu, 95, is now a special invitee to  the politburo. The CPM is unlikely to budge from its stand that the allegations against Vijayan in connection with the SNC-Lavalin case are politically motivated and need to be countered politically and legally.