Karat asks Pinarayi to redraft report

NEW DELHI: CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, who in the eye of a storm over the Left���s electoral debacle, has asked the Kerala state unit not to point the accusing finger at chief minister V S Achuthanandan. Mr Karat directed state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan to redraft the election post-mortem report basing it on an objective assessment of the outcome.

The suggestion was made on Monday night as the two-day meeting of the CPM state secretariat, largely dominated by Mr Vijayan���s loyalists, neared its end in Thiruvananthapuram, party sources said.

The central leadership wanted it to be an unbiased exercise in introspection rather than in finger pointing. The central leadership���s advice came a day before the party���s three-day state committee began on Tuesday.

Mr Vijayan, in his report, had mainly blamed the chief minister���s refusal to toe the party line on various issues, including SNC Lavalin scam, for the party���s dismal performance in the elections. LDF���s tally slipped to four from a record 18 in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. More worrying for the Marxists was the loss of seats in its strongholds in the northern parts of the state.

According to sources, Mr Karat told the state secretariat that the polit bureau and central committee will examine the impact of issues like Lavalin and the association with PDP. The polit bureau meeting on June 18 will be followed by two days of deliberations by the central committee here.

Mr Achuthanandan, while defending himself against his bete noire���s charges, is understood to have said the main reasons for the party���s defeat were CPM���s tie-up with Abdul Nasser Madani���s PDP, snapping of ties with JD(S) and the Lavalin scandal, in which CBI sought to arraign Mr Vijayan.

This is not the first time that Mr Karat is faced with such complaints. The polit bureau last week too had raised these issues. Earlier, at a meeting of Left parties, a day after the Lok Sabha results, CPM���s central leadership was asked to review its attitude towards allies. The allies said CPM had alienated all LDF partners one by one. First, RSP was refused a seat, then JD(S) was denied Kozhikode, leading to the ally parting ways and finally CPI���s demand to fight Ponnani was rejected by CPM, which had a tactical understanding with PDP.