The Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s central leadership has chosen not to criticise the omission of KK Shailaja from Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s new Cabinet.
The leaders, instead, put the onus of keeping Shailaja out of the Council of Ministers on the party’s state committee.
Shailaja, who earned international acclaim for her handling of the Nipah outbreak in 2018 and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as Kerala's health minister in the outgoing Cabinet, has now been chosen as the ruling party’s whip in the Legislative Assembly. The decision to not retain her in the new state Cabinet has triggered widespread criticism.
“The decision to select the ministers is taken by the state committee of the party. They can explain this. That is all that I have to say,” CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat told Moneycontrol.
READ: Kerala Cabinet: Veena George to replace KK Shailaja as health minister; CM Vijayan's son-in-law Mohamed Riyas to be the new PWD minister
CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury also took a similar line. “The decision concerning formation of the Cabinet are matters decided by the party’s state committee. The state committee discussed the issue and came to a unanimous decision,” Yechury told The Hindu newspaper.
The Kerala state committee of CPI(M) announced on May 18 that it had chosen Pinarayi Vijayan as the Chief Minister after historic second consecutive term. The new state Cabinet comprising 21 members from CPI(M) will have all new faces, including Vijayan’s son-in-law PA Mohammed Riyas.
Shailaja, however, said it was a “very good decision” to completely rejig the Cabinet. Journalist-turned-politician Veena George will replace Shailaja as the state's new health minister.
The fact that CPI(M)'s central leadership has not asserted itself testifies the authority Vijayan holds within the party's state unit, more so after leading the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to a historic second consecutive term and becoming the first chief minister of the state to buck the trend of incumbents getting unseated every five years.
Party leaders in Delhi also perhaps chose to stay silent because of the sinking fortunes of the Left, especially after its dismal performance in the West Bengal assembly election. Kerala remains the only state where the Left is in power.
Also, read: Opinion | Pinarayi Vijayan’s swearing-in spectacle is illogical and insensitive
Sources said that the party's Delhi leadership was also unhappy with the induction of Vijayan’s son-in-law Riyas and acting state secretary A Vijayaraghavan’s wife R Bindu in the 21-member Cabinet.
However, some leaders representing other Left parties openly criticised the decision to drop Shailaja. “Old CM, New Cabinet! Internationally acclaimed health minister KK Shailaja is missing in Kerala Cabinet. What’s really happening? We read in People’s Democracy about the ‘collective’ element in LDF’s rare successive Kerala win, did we miss something?” CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said in a tweet on May 18.
Party mouthpiece People’s Democracy, edited by former CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, had in a recent editorial criticised the media for attributing the CPI(M)-led Left front’s historic win in Kerala to Vijayan alone. The editorial said that the election victory was the result of “both individual and collective efforts”.
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