Is Kerala chief minister on his way out?

The CPI-M official faction, which is in a bitter fight with the octogenarian party leader and Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, has demanded his resignation on the issue of diverse opinion from the party secretariat decision on the multi-crore corruption scam in the SNC Lavalin power project deal in which the CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan is an accused. The CPI-M secretariat has come out against the chief minister in which he is also a member.

According to sources in the CPI-M secretariat, Pinarayi Vijayan has moved the resolution to take action against the chief minister for coming out against the earlier secretariat decision to defend the party and the secretary from the SNC Lavalin corruption case.

It may be recalled that there was a heated argument in the state cabinet on Wednesday with the chief minister on the one side and the other CPI-M ministers on the other side on the decision to allow prosecution procedures against the CPI-M state secretary even after the state Advocate General, C P Surendra Prasad has given his opinion that Vijayan need not be prosecuted.

With the CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat and the party politburo member S Ramachandra Pillai attending the previous state secretariat meeting, the official faction is trying to convince the national leadership that by taking an antagonistic posture in the issue, the chief minister was in fact openly defying the party national leadership.

Sources close to an official faction leader told rediff.com that the CPI-M secretary was sore against the Chief Minister for having indirectly supported the left rebels who were expelled from the party and had contested the general elections as rebels.

There were reports from the state police intelligence that the Chief Minister had shown some interests in the activities of these rebel candidates. Sources said the official faction even tried to foist the allegation that the chief minister was one of the major sources for organizing funds to rebel candidates.