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CPI-M eats humble pie as CPI teams up with Congress on local bodies issue

D Jose in Trivandrum

The ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist in Kerala has averted a major political crisis by climbing down on its stand on the issue of expert committees in local bodies.

The prestigious committees, which were to help the local bodies in implementing development projects, had received accolades from several national and international agencies.

However, the committees ran into trouble with the Congress-led United Democratic Front Opposition and some ruling Left Democratic Front constituents accusing the CPI-M of using the committees to further its political interests.

The Communist Party of India and the Revolutionary Socialist party alleged that the state Planning Board and the expert committees had been hijacked by the CPI-M.

The two parties had mounted a campaign within the state legislative assembly and outside for scraping the expert committees and revamping the Planning Board, allegedly packed with the CPI-M men.

Asserting that the panels were extra constitutional, the CPI said that they were against the spirit of decentralisation envisaged in the Panchayati Raj and Municipalities Bill.

The CPI had received considerable support from the Congress and its partners as they shared the Left party's apprehensions.

There have also been charges of massive corruption and other irregularities. An UDF committee, which had inquired into the charges, has alleged that the CPI-M had been trying to help its members.

The committee has also said it has unearthed several cases of funds being diverted to the CPI-M activists. The charge emanated from the fact that more than 70 per cent of the Rs 6 billion allotted to the local bodies last year was spent in the last 15 days of the extended financial year. This year too the local bodies have not been able to spend more than 40 per cent of the funds allocated to them.

With the Congress backing the Left allies and trying to woo them into its fold, the CPI-M was forced to reconsider its adamant stand.

The CPI took a strong stand in the LDF state committee on the strength of the Congress invitation.

However, the CPI-M has been maintaining that the criticism against the project was motivated. LDF convener V S Achutanandan alleged, ''The critics of the scheme were those whose bribe-making avenues had been affected.'' He accused a section of the state employees of torpedoing the campaign by not cooperating with it.

The CPI-M, which did not relent initially, had to yield to the pressure when the CPI threatened to vote out the Panchayati Raj and Municipalities Bill in the just concluded assembly session if the clauses pertaining to the expert committees were not scrapped.

Though the government removed the controversial clauses, the CPI-M made a volte face in public later by asserting that the government would continue with the expert committees, as they were a must to help the local bodies which lacked technical expertise.

CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said the government had agreed to drop the clauses in the bill to avoid the unpleasant situation of the CPI joining the opposition to vote out the bill.

He said the relevance of the committees was amply proved with they clearing projects within a matter of months. ''If the government were to depend on the bureaucracy it would have taken years together to get clearance for the projects,'' he said.

Asserting that the local bodies would be able take decisions faster if the staff level improved, the CPI maintained that there should not be any hitch in providing adequate staff to them.

The party has asked Chief Minister E K Nayanar to work out the modalities for dissolving the committees after giving the local bodies adequate staff. The CM has been asked to brief the next LDF state committee in this regard.

Though the CPI had scored a temporary victory in this regard, observers felt the task would be difficult as a large number of employees are still not reconciled to the idea of working in the local bodies under the elected representatives.

They felt there would be practical difficulties in carrying out the twin tasks of serving their original departments and working in the panchayats.

To make matters worse, some ministers are not keen on transferring the employees in their departments to the local bodies.

Agriculture Minister Krishnanan Kaniyamparampil of the CPI and some other ministers have asked their staff not to carry out certain works of the local bodies.

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