Kerala CPM faces stormy session in state assembly

Thiruvananthapuram: The Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Democratic Front government is poised to face a stormy session in the state assembly starting here on Monday, following a series of political and governance setbacks within the party and the coalition.

At the top of the heap of the problems ailing the government is the rift within the CPM, that is now threatening to spill into an open war between party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and their respective followers.

The ongoing central committee meeting of the CPM in Delhi has seen the divisive tendencies in the party gather steam, with reports that at least two ministers in Achuthanandan's cabinet have openly criticised the chief minister's style of functioning.

Reports in the local media said Finance Minister Thomas Isaac and Education Minister M A Baby were both critical of Achuthanandan's working style, but neither the chief minister nor Isaac who were contacted for their responses by the media, would react on the reports.

The chief minister left the central committee meeting midway and returned from Delhi here on Sunday, stating that he had to be present when the assembly commenced its sitting.

While the Congress-led opposition is certain to use the divisions in the CPM during the assembly session, the government will also have to face needling on the SNC Lavalin issue, the one issue that is at the core of the CPM's current wave of intra-party problems.

CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan is one of the 11 accused in the corruption case linked to the Canadian company SNC Lavalin for a power sector contract awarded to it in the 1990s.
While the official faction of the CPM supporting state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has strongly opposed the state governor R.S. Gavai's decision to allow prosecution of Vijayan in the case, the chief minister has resolutely declined to criticise the governor's decision.

Besides the issues of intra-party problems and the Lavalin issue, the government will also face a grilling on governance issues in the assembly.

Major infrastructure issues like the Smart City project in Kochi and the Vizhinjam international port project are far from being realised, and many other issues like an agreeable formula for the functioning of self-financing colleges in the state are also pending.