CPM looses its colour

PALAKKAD: The CPM dissidents in the state, already at loggerheads with the official CPM leadership ideologically, have charged that the new found love between CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and PDP leader Abdul Nasser Madhani is against the party’s basic tenet of secularism.

The Left Ekopana Samithi (CPM dissidents) which has fielded candidates in Palakkad, Ponnani, Kozhikode and Vadakara has started distributing copies of articles serialised in ‘Desabhimani’ in 2002 which cast Madhani as the co-ordinator of religious extremist activities in the south.

“It’s curtains for the CPM’s three-decade- old fight against communalism.

First the party abandoned its anti-globalisation stand, then it bid goodbye to the anti-corruption issue, with the central leadership protecting the Lavalin accused and now secularism has been shown the door,” said CPM dissident leader and candidate in Palakkad M R Murali.

In the eighties when the shariat controversy was at its peak, the CPM took a secular stand. The All India Union Muslim League (AIUML), a part of the LDF even during the Emergency, had to leave the front on the issue, he said.

“Even CMP leader M V Raghavan was expelled from the party for floating the ‘baddal rekha’ which argued in favour of the League. Whether it was the Janapaksham of Raman Pillai or the PDP of Madhani, a clean chit cannot be given overnight just because they are in the LDF camp. Sometimes Madhani can be a sage but the extemist organisation which he floated attracted cadres in the name of rabid communalism. How can the organisation be whitewashed?” asked CPM dissident leader and candidate in Kozhikode Adv Kumarankutty.

Murali pointed out that when the late EMS Namboodiripad justified Madhani’s actions in an article in ‘Desabhimani’, then CPM general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet had warned him.

“The CPM party congress deplored both majority and minority communalism.

Any person who canvasses for votes in the name of religion, including Madhani, can be called communal,” said CPM dissident leader and candidate in Vadakara T P Chandrasekharan.

“The tie-up of the CPM with Madhani will only help the BJP and the RSS become stronger. Ponnani is not a constituency with 100 percent Muslims. The minorities comprise 52 percent and by aligning with Madhani the CPM will be alienating the secularists in the constituency who will rally behind us,” said CPM dissident and candidate in Ponnani Dr Azad.

Chandrasekharan said the CPM, out of electoral compulsions, may go out of the way to justify Madhani but will end up alienating the existing Front partners and cobble a new front with communal parties post-elections.

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