The Old V/s New Left?

THIRVANANTHAPURAM

It could have been a day resplendent in a revolutionary haze inThirvananthapuram, but as the hard-line Marxist veteran V.S. Achuthanandanassumed office along with 18 Ministers, the festive spirit was marred byinner-party dissension on the allocation of portfolios. And to top it all, noneof the prominent faces of the Left in New Delhi were present. So, for the Left,the day belonged clearly to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in Calcutta who stole theshow as Tata Sons chief Ratan Tata flew in to commit Rs 1,000-crore investmentin the ambitious Rs one-lakh-a-car project.

At his maiden press conference after taking over, Achuthanandan, on the otherhand, vowed to punish the different mafia elements, sex racketeers andplunderers of natural wealth. He also announced the waiver of loans availed ofby indebted farmers who had committed suicide. He would clear all welfarepension arrears, he said, but in IT all that he promised was 5,000 jobs in oneyear.

As days go by the comparisons would become starker between the two CPM-ledgovernments in Kerala and West Bengal and between Achuthanandan and BuddhadebBhattacharjee. But the Kerala veteran’s greatest constraint would be thefactional pulls from within the party. It’s been the first time in the pastmore than two decades that the Chief Minister has been deprived of the crucialHome portfolio. He has been left only with General Administration and a fewinsignificant portfolios. His Cabinet sessions would be the most eventful withan array of the rival CPM Ministers holding the plum portfolios of Home,Finance, Education, Health, Industry, IT and Tourism virtually taking him on theminutiae of governance.

Rival camp strongman Kodiyeri Balakrishnan controls Home and Tourism. It’sbeen reported that the Achuthanandan camp had already shot off its protestletter to the party leadership in New Delhi against the short shrift in theportfolio allocation. His men end up with Fisheries, Law and Labor. But, on itspart, the Achuthanandan camp denies having sent any such protest fax.

This was the first time that so many youngsters had turned up for theswearing-in, which was only fitting in the afterglow of the spate of crusadesundertaken by Achuthanandan during the past five years and his final act ofcompelling the CPM politburo to reverse its decision and grant him an Assemblyticket and then to make him the Chief Minister.

Talking of youth, barring three ministers, all the rest are new to theCabinet. Call it a GenNext Cabinet. The average age of the cabinet ministers is57 years. The youngest is JD(S)’s Mathew T.Thomas, 42 years, and the oldest isAchuthanandan. The lone woman Minister is CPM leader P.K.Sreemathy, 57, whoholds charge of Health and Social Welfare.

Interestingly, voices of dissent had come from the CM supporters and the CPMallies, who have got a foretaste of the CPM style of functioning in theportfolio allocation. None of the leaders of the Left parties in New Delhi waspresent at the swearing-in as most of them were reportedly in Calcutta to attendthe swearing in of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

If coalition governance and running a ministry has to do with responding toaspirations of different sections of society, Achuthananandan would have to goout of the way to win the confidence of different communities. In spite of theMuslim and Christian communities having gravitated towards the Left in theelections, the new Cabinet has just two Muslims in the Cabinet. Christians farebetter with four ministers.

Granted that the Left coalition is unlike the Congress-led United DemocraticFront in handling different social pressure groups. But this can be counteredonly by actual performance - so manifestly absent in the past.

Achuthanandan would have to find better ways of utilizing the nearly Rs30,000 crore NRI deposits in commercial banks, create more IT jobs, spruce upTourism, lay better infrastructure facilities and at the same time keep the poorin good humor. Outgoing Chief Minister Oommen Chandy tried this, but votersthrew him out.

In the case of Achuthanandan, with a hostile faction around, his only optionwould be to break the conventional confines of the party and appeal directly tothe masses. As the Chief Minister he can do this without inviting the partywrath.