Graft charge against CPM gets buried

With
the Opposition parties of Kerala falling for the bait the CPI(M)
offered in the form of a discussion on secularism, it has succeeded in
keeping the Rs 374-crore SNC Lavalin corruption charges against its
secretary Pinarayi Vijayan out of the focus of the poll campaigns of
the Congress-led UDF and BJP.

The controversies over the
Marxist alliance with Abdul Nasser Madani’s PDP and the NDF’s
declaration of support for the UDF have effectively buried the biggest
ever corruption charge, which would become the biggest embarrassment
for the CPI(M) in the 15th Lok Sabha elections.

Even
intra-CPI(M) surveys have proved that the electoral alliance struck
with the PDP would cost it dearly in the polls with secular-minded
Hindus and a big chunk of pro-CPI(M) Muslims away from the party, but
the estimates of the official leadership of the party is that it would
not be as damaging as the SNC Lavalin controversy.

The CPI(M)
leadership, specifically the official faction led by secretary Pinarayi
Vijayan, had embarked on the diversionary tactic with the determination
to keep the corruption case, in which he was to be made the ninth
accused, out of the periphery of the campaign considerations of the UDF
as well as the BJP.