Author: VR Jayaraj
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: April 6, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/167663/Graft-charge-against-CPM-gets-buried.html
With the Opposition parties of Kerala falling
for the bait the CPI(M) offered in the form of a discussion on secularism,
it has succeeded in keeping the Rs 374-crore SNC Lavalin corruption charges
against its secretary Pinarayi Vijayan out of the focus of the poll campaigns
of the Congress-led UDF and BJP.
The controversies over the Marxist alliance
with Abdul Nasser Madani's PDP and the NDF's declaration of support for the
UDF have effectively buried the biggest ever corruption charge, which would
become the biggest embarrassment for the CPI(M) in the 15th Lok Sabha elections.
Even intra-CPI(M) surveys have proved that
the electoral alliance struck with the PDP would cost it dearly in the polls
with secular-minded Hindus and a big chunk of pro-CPI(M) Muslims away from
the party, but the estimates of the official leadership of the party is that
it would not be as damaging as the SNC Lavalin controversy.
The CPI(M) leadership, specifically the official
faction led by secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, had embarked on the diversionary
tactic with the determination to keep the corruption case, in which he was
to be made the ninth accused, out of the periphery of the campaign considerations
of the UDF as well as the BJP.
