Shifting sands in the CPM camp - Elections '11.

The CPM has decided not to field either VS Achuthanandan, the CM or Pinarayi Vijayan, the secretary of its state unit in the forthcoming elections and has entrusted Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the current Home minister, to lead the party. There's a general feeling that, the state secretariat that had taken this decision, has a majority of Pinarayi Vijayan's supporters. What it's gonna bring about in terms of results is best left to the poll pundits and the electorate.

Here is my take on the performance of the Left Democratic Front, led by the CPM, thus far. Before coming to power, as the leader of the opposition, VS Achuthanandan had promised to cleanse up the system with particular emphasis to the following issues, if voted to power:-
(a) Encroachment of government land would be reversed - Munnar was just one of the many sites!
(b) The culprits involved in the infamous 'Kiliroor' case, where a girl was sexually exploited repeatedly, including relatives of 'powerful' people, would be brought to book within the first month of taking over!
(c) The agreement on 'Smart City' would be rewritten - citing a sell out to the TCOM company by the then UDF government - with better clauses, advantageous to the state!

Alas, as Chief Minister, he was unable to do anything substantial on the issues mentioned above as his government was under the siege, set, by his party's state secretariat. The Munnar evictions were started off with much fanfare but was hastily called off as it impinged upon the sheer existence of some of his own partymen and even some of the political allies of the LDF ! It was a period of lack of governance which was, however, corrected marginally towards the fag end by the 'Smart City' project getting through but not before making the ordinary people wonder as to whether there were any momentous changes at all over the earlier one! Moreover, at a personal level, his son's shenanigans have also clouded his efforts.

Pinarayi Vijayan, in the meanwhile, was getting mired in the 'SNC Lavalin' case for his decisions, on the project, as the then Electricity minister!

The disillusioned Keralites have realised one thing that has been reiterated earlier too - all political parties are the same. They promise something and do not deliver, only to come back in the next elections, promising the same things 'packaged' perhaps in the style of the times without being ashamed!