If LDF loses, Pinarayi will be lost & gone forever

If
the LDF loses the Lok Sabha poll in Kerala this time, the blame would
squarely be placed on CPM State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. A section
of the party workers has raised complaints of brutal political
repression against him. The happiest man in such a situation would be
none other than Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan.

This election
is a struggle for survival of Pinarayi. This is the first election he
is leading from the front. If his efforts end in a debacle, which poll
watchers do not rule out, that might even to be the end of his
omnipotence in the CPM.

The CPM, led by Pinarayi, had entered
the poll scene when he himself was a huge liability for the party due
to his alleged involvement in a scam. Achuthanandan told the party
leadership that this could damage the party badly, but they refused to
care.

When Pinarayi launched a pre-poll all-Kerala march, the
CBI had already requested the State Governor for sanction to prosecute
him as the ninth accused in the corruption case. This was the first
time a CPM Politburo member or State unit chief was facing a corruption
case. Still, like an unyielding fighter, he stood his ground and made
the Politburo and the central committee bend over to support him.
Achuthanandan withdrew into his shell, declaring that he would act
according to the party constitution.

Pinarayi knew very well
that it would be hard to face the people with the branding of the
‘corrupt’ on his chest and back. So he came up with the “secular”
alliance theory and forged an alliance with the PDP of Abdul Nasser
Madani. He fought for it in the party, the LDF and outside. The
marriage with the outfit of the man with alleged terror links nearly
split the LDF. Though the CPI pocketed the humiliation after much
protest, observers were sure that the CPM would lose a large chunk of
CPI votes in this election.

Before all this happened, Pinarayi
had ensured that a large number of party workers were either expelled
or silenced. In the party’s fortress at Onchiyam in Kozhikode district,
thousands of partymen walked out after the expulsion of a few local
leaders and formed a new party. In Shoranur, the same thing was
repeated. The expelled rebels are in the fray in some constituencies,
which is sure to eat into the party candidates’ prospects.

Independent
assessments refuse to give even half the total seats in Kerala to the
LDF. Even the CPM’s official assessment is that it could get a maximum
of eight of the 14 seats it is contesting. However, serious pollsters
are of the opinion that the actual results would be an unimaginable
blow for the Left.

The problem is Vijayan would be held
responsible for any degree of defeat. The Christians as a bloc are
against the LDF. Since then (and before that), Pinarayi-camper
Education Minister MA Baby kept on nagging at the peace of mind of the
Christians with his “revolutionary” moves for reforms in the education
sector.

More than 75 per cent of the Muslims are opposed to the
Left despite the efforts to win that vote bank through showering of
sops on that community. A large chunk of aristocratic and middle class
Hindus, who traditionally were a firm vote base for the Marxists, are
irked by the party’s tie-up with the PDP. Above all is the allegation
of corruption against Pinarayi.

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