As a definite pointer to the CPM-led LDF'srout in the Lok Sabha polls 2009, the CPM lost eight of the nine wards in the by-polls to Shornur Municipal Corporation recently. Shornur in Palakkad district is an unshakable ?Red Fort? and the CPM has ruled here for three decades. The CPM has been reduced to a minority in the 33 member civic body, with CPM rebels (pro-VS men expelled by Pinarayi) carrying the day.
Palakkad was the only district in Kerala which Chief Minister VS Atchudanandan had in his kitty. The units of all other 13 districts of Kerala owe allegiance to the party strongman Pinarayi Vijayan. After the party state meet in Kottayam, the Pinarayi-dominated state committee dissolved the Palakkad district branch and local units and packed them with ad-hoc committees owing loyalty to Pinarayi Vijayan. The situation of the VS group was so pathetic that Palakkad and Ottapalam MPs?NN Krishnadas and S Ajaya Kumar?were even denied entry into local committees. When MR Murali, chairman of the Shornur Municipality protested, he was expelled from the party. In solidarity with him eight members of the municipality resigned. The CPM used goonda force to deal with them. Several of them, women corporators, were attacked and there were two attempts on M.R. Murali'slife.
But unfazed by the ?Red Terror? they faced the by-polls. In an open defiance to the Pinarayi dominated CPM, the rank and file of the CPM campaigned for MR Murali and his team, warding off threats to their life. They had also, behind the screen support of VS.
The MR Murali-led Janakeeya Vikasa Samithi (JVS) trounced the CPM in eight of the nine wards thereby capturing the 33 member Shornur Municipality with the support of 7 member UDF and one member BJP.
Similarly in several parts of Kerala opposition to the ?Stalinist Pinarayi? dominated CPM has erupted with parallel revolutionary CPM and Revolutionary DYFI units springing up especially in strongholds like Onjiyam.
The rank and file of the CPM are violent against the Kannur lobby of Pinarayi – Kodiyeri- Jayarajan- Sreemathi which has taken the party from its ideological pro-poor mooring to a corporatised, asset grabbing pro-rich party. Party channel, water guzzling theme parks, five star hotels and tourist resorts have become the priorities of these pro-rich proletariat leaders who own mansions worth crores of rupees and holiday in Singapore, Austria and Europe. Their children study in US and London spending crores of rupees. In several districts, state and PB meets, the luxurious lifestyle of the CPM big bosses and their Monkey-Brigade Chotta Comrades? have come in for severe criticism.
What the CPM lovers still dream is of a leadership which will pull it out of its time-barred hardline, impractical, old-guard communist VS and a pro-capitalist Pinarayi whose only aim is asset-accumulation. They want a changed leadership which will take the state forward.
Chasing the failed communist ideology, Kerala has remained stagnant and redundant for the past 50 years, despite high literacy, top brains and unlimited natural and other resources. Kerala has to come out of the CPM chains for progress. May be, this election result is a beginning?
