Receiving of loans, aids and grants from international agencies like World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the countries like Japan, the Netherlands etc. had always created double-talk and divisions within the CPM. While West Bengal openly welcomes foreign investment and receives international aids and loans without any inhibitions, the Kerala CPM has always been churned by an ideological debate on its acceptability. While new-look modern communist leader Pinarayi Vijayan is all for accepting external funds, his bete noire V.S. Atchudanandan is against accepting any such funds as it is a dilution of communist ideology. The controversy surrounding this issue erupted like a volcano a year back and the two CPM stalwarts?Berlin Kunjanandan Nair, and M.N. Vijayan (both V.S. loyalists)?were removed from the party for speaking against Dr. Thomas Issac, the CPM MLA from Mararikulam and Pinarayi right hand, for receiving the Netherlands government'said for projects in his constituency.
Now this same Thomas Issac, who is seeking re-election from Mararikulam in Alapuzha district and an ex-IAS officer Alphons Kannamthanam, who is contesting as a Left candidate from Kanjirapally in Kottayam district, are under the scanner of central Intelligence Agencies for their role in the missing of classified maps from the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS), Thiruvananthapuram and for resource-mapping exercises carried out in Kerala in the nineties without sanction from the Surveyor-General of India.
Media reports quote central intelligence agencies as saying that investigations against the MLA has been going on for a year and the draft report has found him guilty of four offences. IB officials emphasise that such classified documents should never go into the hands of foreigners. They say that Thomas Issac and a top official in the Dutch embassy are directly involved in the case. IB sources say that the Home Ministry is also studying the various decisions implemented under the aegis of foreign funding agencies. They say that many of the decisions amount to foreign intervention in the planning programme of a sovereign republic. Home ministry officials feel that the missing maps from CESS might have reached CIA which is constantly updating its archives.
The IAS officer and Ex-Land Use Board (LUB) Commissioner of Kerala Alphons Kannam-thanam was earlier involved in a controversy of notifying Cardamom Hill Reserve forests as revenue excess land. This will enable Christian encroachers, who have almost encroached the entire forest area of Kerala, to obtain patta and ownership of forest land. In fact the Christian encroachers of Kerala are the largest manufacturers of ganja and illicit liquor. The charge the IB has against Alphons is that he conducted resource mapping of
Lands in Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur districts without the approval of Surveyor-General of India. Moreover, documents connected with these are also missing. IB officials suspect that the CESS maps and LUB maps might have reached in foreign hands.
The Pinarayi group in the CPM had given the Kanjirappally seat to Alphons Kannamthanam (who resigned from IAS) despite opposition from Kerala Congress (Joseph) and V.S. Perhaps Alphons Kannamthanam'sproximity to Pinarayi loyalist Thomas Issac in this anti-national act clinched the deal.
The fact that the CPM do so much despite being in the opposition tells volumes on what anti-national activities it would do once it comes to power. Meanwhile, the Congress has called for a probe into the missing maps affair. But it is not to be forgotten that an ex-MP and Congress minister and now candidate K.V. Thomas was involved in a case of helping a French espionage ship in carrying out spy operations in the Southern Naval Command area in Kochi.
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