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CPI-M says 'no' to Muslim League

George Iype in Thiruvananthapuram

After dilly-dallying for more than two months, the Communist Party of India-Marxist has officially spurned the idea of the Muslim League becoming a coalition partner in the Left Democratic Front government.

CPI-M leaders, led by Chief Minister E K Nayanar and party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, have been holding talks with the League, which the Marxists had once denounced as communal.

Stiff resistance from some state and national CPI-M leaders and the Communist Party of India, the second largest party in the LDF government, forced the CPI-M leadership to abandon the move, which would have reshaped Kerala's volatile coalition politics.

Since political combinations in Kerala are equally divided between the ruling Left Democratic Front led by the CPI-M and the United Democratic Front led by the Congress, any coalition partner switching sides could have led to a historic political realignment in the state.

"There has been a debate in the party whether to include the League into the LDF coalition. But the party politburo has decided that we will have no truck with any majority or minority communal parties in the state," CPI-M leader V S Achuthanandan, who opposed the tie-up told rediff.com.

He said that the CPI-M was not ready for an electoral alliance with communal parties. "Tying up with communal parties is the portfolio of the Congress. The Bharatiya Janata Party leads all of them, from the front," the CPI-M leader stated.

But Achuthanandan's opponents in the state party unit, led by Nayanar and Viyayan, are said to be upset that the party politburo ignored their plea for a tie-up.

They believe that on the eve of the panchayat and state assembly polls, roping in the League would have ensured victory.

But political analysts say that if the League joined the Left Front, there would have been a major realignment of communal forces in the state.

"The Congress would have been forced to get into an informal electoral understanding with the BJP," says political observer K P Mohan Das. The BJP, largely supported by the Nair caste, remains a political outcast in the state.

Moreover, Das says, the League joining the LDF would have other serious repercussions. "The CPI, with which the CPI-M has difference of opinion on many issues, would have deserted the LDF government," Das added.

The League, which has been swaying between the Congress-led UDF and CPI-M-led LDF for some years, says its dialogue with the CPI-M was based on "coalition fears".

"There is a bitter infighting in the Congress, which heads the opposition. We still fear that going to the polls with the Congress will destroy our prospects," a senior League leader told rediff.com.

He claimed that the League's leaning towards the Marxists has been forced by the internecine battle within the Congress. The Congress in Kerala is divided into groups led by K Karunakaran and A K Antony.

"Groupism in the Congress will erode chances of our winning. If we lose the next elections, it will be because of infighting in the Congress. So we thought it would be better to align with the Marxists,'' the League leader added.

Though the League, a Muslim party pre-dominantly based in north Kerala's Malabar districts, says it is still with the Congress-led UDF, many believe it could desert the coalition as the polls near.

Senior League leaders have met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and submitted a list of demands. They include more tickets for the assembly elections and nomination of its candidate to the Rajya Sabha, which the Congress leadership conceded last week.

Thus, despite the Marxists' open branding of the League as communal, many believe that the Marxists-League talks will continue to see if "Marxist ideology" can associate with "communal politics", at least on an experimental basis, for the next elections.

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