No cheers for Left on fourth anniversary

As the CPI(M)-led LDF Government in Kerala is entering its fifth year on Tuesday, even hardcore Marxists are reluctant to term its performance in the past four years as brilliant. However, critics tend to describe those four years as turbulent with political feuds overshadowing people’s issues and allegations of corruption, inefficiency, favouritism, law-and-order collapse, etc continuing throughout the period in unprecedented scales.

Asked by a newspaper to recall some of the greatest achievements of his Government in the past four years, octogenarian Marxist Chief Minister VS Achuth-anandan said there were hundreds of them and it was difficult to recount all.

However, Opposition leader and top Congress functionary Oommen Chandy referred to the LDF rule as one which would not find a place in history. Independent observers opine that while the first claim is hollow the Opposition allegation is insincere.

As a senior CPI(M) leader put it, “One is sure that the fifth year will be lost in the front’s preparations for the Assembly election due in April-May next and this ensures that the promises that had been left unfulfilled would remain so. And such promises are many. He will never be able to keep the word he gave to the people four years back.”

On every anniversary, the LDF has faced crucial issues. The first anniversary was somewhat relieving thanks to the issue of Munnar’s encroached lands. The last anniversary was submerged in total despair due to the humiliation the Left suffered after the Lok Sabha elections.

On the eve of fourth anniversary, the credibility collapse of the Left as an administrative force is appalling. “It has failed miserably in fulfilling the majority of the poll-time promises it had made to the people,” said a newspaper editor.

Achuthanandan had promised to parade sex-abusers and flesh trade racketeers in fetters on the roads but he could do almost nothing in this regard. “He had vouched to take corrupt politicians and officials to task but his own party now stands mired in corruption allegations,” the editor said.

The Left had come to power promising a development culture with human face but no vital development project took off and whatever project came up was fraught with the worst imaginable human rights violations.

A fortnight before the anniversary, the State police unleashed terror on a group of people in Kinalur, protesting against the land acquisition for a four-lane road to an industrial facility where no significant units existed or were proposed.

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