TRIVANDRUM, 16 May 2006 — The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) yesterday nominated hard-liner V.S. Achuthanandan as the next chief minister of Kerala.
But the 83-year-old has been deprived of the home portfolio, generally kept by the chief minister, and the new ministry, to be sworn in Thursday, will be dominated by his reformist opponents.
A statement from the party secretariat said the decision by the State Committee was unanimous. It also approved unanimously a list of ministers presented by State Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.
Achuthanandan will look after local self government and general administration. Only two of his camp followers — S. Sharma and P.K. Gurudasan — managed to get onboard.
The committee nominated Kodiyeri Balakrishnan for home after Paloli Mohammed Kutty, the reformists’ candidate for the chief minister before the politburo taking a different view, refused to take up the responsibility to maintain law and order.
Kutty would now be the new education minister. Former minister K. Radhakrishnan is the speaker of the assembly. Other ministers are P.K. Sreemathy, M.A. Baby, Dr. Thomas Isaac, Elamaram Kareem, M. Vijaya Kumar, G. Sudhakaran and A.K. Balan.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) that the CPI-M leads secured a thumping victory in the assembly elections but the party leadership found it difficult to pick a chief minister thanks to a bitter power struggle between hard-liners and reformists.
From a tailoring assistant to the top post it has been a tortuous trek for this school dropout. Achuthanandan was kept out of the fray initially but the popular pressure forced the politburo to reverse its decision. His ascent to the thrown is seen as yet another victory for the veteran against the official faction.
In his 60-odd years as a politician, Achuthanandan has never been in government. He staked his claim in 1991 but the party lost in that elections. In 1996, the party won but he lost from his home constituency of Mararikkulam.
Five years later, he went to Malampuzha in Malabar searching for a safe seat and won with a comfortable margin. But it was the Congress party’s turn to rule.
In his youth he led a rebellion against the king of Travancore, a staunch Marxist- baiter.
He was among the 32 comrades who left the Communist Party of India National Council in 1964 to form the CPI-M. He has been a member of the CPI-M politburo since 1985.
Over the last two decades, Achuthanandan has been targeted by party members from northern Kerala who are against the old-school communism of Achuthanandan.
He avenged his humiliation by his infamous “vetti nirathal” (selective felling of opponents). Many of them fell by wayside. When enemies’ number swelled, he started cultivating his own brand and group in the party.
This copybook Marxist knows it well where it matters. By taking up popular issues and waging a war against corruption at high places soon he became a cult figure.
In another development, outgoing Chief Minister Oommen Chandy yesterday observed that Achuthanandan seemed to have changed his outlook toward the Rs.15 billion Smart City project.
“Till the other day Achuthanandan was saying that the Smart City project was nothing but a real estate deal meant to pocket commission by people behind this project,” Chandy told reporters.
“He even said that if the LDF government assumes power, he would send me to jail. But in Delhi, he seems to have a different outlook on the Smart City project, which is nice.”
