The Assembly office room that is giving sleepless nights to Kerala’s Communists

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 10 (SocialNews.XYZ) What began as a dispute over an office room in the Kerala Assembly has opened up a much larger fault line within the Left Democratic Front, putting the CPI-M and its smaller but increasingly assertive ally, the CPI, on another collision course.

Speaker Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan’s decision to leave the issue to Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan has put the CPI-M in a particularly awkward position.

The Speaker has made it clear that the room meant for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has not been denied; it will go to whoever officially holds the post.

If Vijayan submits a letter identifying the Deputy Leader, the room will be allotted.

That seemingly innocuous condition has turned the room into a political test for the LDF.

The CPI-M wants the room for K.N. Balagopal, while the CPI is insisting that the post should go to its nominee, former minister K. Rajan.

CPI state Secretary Binoy Viswam and other leaders have made it clear that the party will not surrender what it considers its legitimate share in the Opposition hierarchy.

The CPI-M has 26 members in the Assembly against the CPI’s eight, but the latter argues that coalition convention has traditionally recognised the second-largest constituent with the Deputy Leader’s position.

For the CPI-M, formally naming Balagopal could mean opening another front with the CPI.

For Vijayan, choosing the CPI nominee could revive questions within his own party over power equations and the leadership’s handling of the Opposition.

The tension has a familiar ring to it.

The two Communist parties have shared power, ideology and electoral fortunes in Kerala for decades, but their relationship has rarely been entirely comfortable.

Until 1964, they were part of the undivided Communist Party of India.

The split that year gave birth to the CPI-M, which has since emerged as the dominant force in Kerala's Left, with the CPI generally playing the role of the smaller partner.

That big brother relationship has, however, repeatedly produced friction whenever the CPI felt its political space was being squeezed.

During the first Pinarayi Vijayan government, the differences reached one of their more dramatic points when the four CPI ministers boycotted a weekly Cabinet meeting to press their demands, turning an internal disagreement into an open political embarrassment for the government.

The second Vijayan government saw another significant flashpoint over the PM SHRI scheme.

The CPI took a firm position against the manner in which the Vijayan government handled the issue, forcing the party to publicly distance itself from the government's stand before the dispute was eventually defused.

The present controversy over the Deputy Leader’s room therefore cannot be viewed merely as an administrative disagreement.

It touches the same underlying question that has periodically troubled the LDF: how far can the CPI-M, as the dominant partner, push its advantage before the CPI decides that its own political space is being eroded?

The irony is that the CPI-M's attempt to establish Balagopal as the Opposition's number two without a formal declaration has now run into the Speaker's insistence on procedure.

Balagopal already has an office room as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, making the demand for another room dependent entirely on establishing his status as Deputy Leader.

The Speaker's intervention has thus pushed the decision back into the LDF's court and, more specifically, into Vijayan's hands.

If Vijayan writes to the Speaker naming Balagopal, the CPI could see it as a direct challenge to its claim.

If he chooses Rajan, the CPI-M's own internal equations could come under pressure.

The dispute also comes at a particularly sensitive time for the LDF.

Meetings intended to review the Assembly election defeat have already been delayed amid differences over the leadership structure in the Opposition.

A room in the Assembly complex may therefore have become the physical symbol of a much bigger question: is the CPI still willing to play the junior partner to the CPI-M, or is it preparing to draw a line over how much of its political space it is prepared to concede?

For now, the Speaker has merely asked Vijayan to identify the Deputy Leader. But that letter could prove far more consequential than the room it is meant to secure.

Source: IANS