CPI(M)’s chair-bound central core red flags personality cult around Pinarayi Vijayan

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Thiruvananthapuram: The discomfiture of the chair-bound central functionaries of the CPI(M) over attributing the entire credit of the party’s historic win in Kerala to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has come out in the open with the CPI(M)’s official organ Peoples Democracy (PD) red-flagging the trend of the personality cult.

Significantly, the editorial in the post-election edition of the party newspaper coincided with the celebration of “Vijay Din” (Victory Day) by the CPI (M) workers and sympathizers by lighting candles at homes across the state on May 7.

The PD editorial, “Kerala: A significant Victory”, though unsigned, is presumed to have been penned by the party’s former general secretary and Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat, the editor of the weekly newspaper.

Of course, the write-up showers encomiums to the performance of the LDF regime under Vijayan in the last five years, and how under his able leadership it tackled grim challenges like back-to-back natural disasters and outbreak of epidemics with a clear policy perspective and firm resolution to implement them. But before concluding, it unambiguously voices the strong reservation over the tendency to reduce the success to the ‘supreme leader,’ rather than seeing it as the result of collective efforts. As usual, ‘sections of the media’ have been faulted for creating such an impression.

“There is an effort by sections of the media and some political commentators to reduce this historic victory solely to the personality and role of Pinarayi Vijayan. According to them, it is the emergence of a supreme leader or strong man that was the main reason for the electoral success of the LDF. They claim that one man dominates the government and the party”, the PD editorial states.

After setting the context in clear terms, it goes on to say “ Nevertheless, the victory is the result of both individual and collective efforts. As far as the CPIM) and LDF are concerned, the coming ministry will continue the tradition of collective work and individual responsibility.”

Also Read: Congress wrecked, BJP wilted as Vijayan-led LDF storms to the second term in Kerala

The timing as well as the tone and tenor of the message is pretty clear. It seeks to tell the office- bearers in the organizational hierarchy and cadres at the grassroots that idolizing a single leader, however significant his or her role at a given context might be, would only damage the party’s long-term interests, in the only state where it still matters.

The exhortation of the party mouthpiece has, however, made little impact in the state. In the public reckoning 75-year-old, Vijayan still enjoys the status of an unbeatable captain, whose grit and determination combined with an uncanny ability to strategize and carry out the campaign is the single-most factor for the LDF’s record-setting victory. When the ministry is formed by around May 20, the final word will be that of Vijayan himself. The party, of course, will go through its time-honoured procedures like holding the state committee and secretariat to decide the nominees for the cabinet. It may even seek the concurrence of the Central Committee and Polit Bureau. But unlike in previous occasions, all these would be practised as mere rituals, as prescribed by the principle of democratic centralism.

Confined to their cabins at the party centre in New Delhi, most central functionaries of the CPI(M), including general secretary Sitaram Yechuri and Karat, hardly had any role in scripting and directing the Kerala campaign. Surprisingly, they are silent on the complete rout of the CPI(M) in West Bengal, where they directly ran the party’s electoral affairs.

Though the phenomenon of the party and the government revolving around a powerful leader is something new for Kerala, this exactly had been the case wherever the communist parties wielded power for long. Mighty leaders had called all shots for pretty long in the Soviet Union and its East European satellites, before their collapse in the 1990s. In West Bengal itself, the late CPI(M) stalwart Jyoti Basu had a free run for over 30 years. It is an altogether different thing that the time and tide are against 75-year-old Vijayan to repeat such a feat, beyond his incoming term.