Will CPI-M Politburo meet decide the fate of VS?

The Communist Party of India-Marxist Politburo is to meet from Friday for two days in New Delhi. Politburo members and senior Kerala leaders, including Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and state home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan left for Delhi on Thursday.

All the three leaders who left separately to Delhi chose to ignore the media while facing uncomfortable questions.

When asked whether the controversial SNC Lavelin case will be discussed in the Politburo, Pinarayi Vijayan, who stands as the seventh accused in the case, said that the question has to be answered by the CPI-M general  secretary Prakash Karat.

Kerala is watching with baited breath as the crucial politburo meeting could well result in the change of the Chief Minister Achuthanandan from the post. The party's official faction, which is enjoying a massive majority in the elected party posts, has been constantly petitioning the politburo to remove the octogenarian leader from the CM's post for his anti party activities and spitting venom in public against the party leadership.

The faction close to the CM, however, with the backing of some friendly media organisations, has also claimed that if the Chief Minister is removed then the party secretary, who is facing corruption charges, should also go.

This according, to Achuthanandan's supporters, is a move which would result in getting the reins of the party back in their hands as the think-tanks attached with Achuthanandan believes that if Vijayan is unseated from the powerful post of party secretary, then the power equations in the CPI-M would change and several fence-sitters could well be brought back to the CM's camp.

The CPI-M is facing its toughest political phase in its history after the ignonimous split in party.

The party cadres have all lost their faces among the public with the leaders and the grass-root cadres breaking their communication chain with higher leadership.

The CPI-M leadership which was trying to convince its cadres that the SNC Lavalin case and other scandals including that of accepting money from the controversial lottery king of South India, Santiago Martin, were all media speculations is now facing the irony of answering straight questions from the cadres who were hitherto suppressed from asking uncomfortable questions.

The CPI-M, which lost badly in the recent general elections, has also not done its introspection and this has also clearly created series of doubts in the minds of the party cadres who were expecting the party leadership to come out with a concrete answer, instead of putting the blame on the media.