Not even a year into office, the Marxist Government in Kerala is assuring the State electorate that it is following in the footsteps of French queen Marie Antoinette. The Government has no jobs to offer but it is asking people to watch the circus in which the performers are the leaders of the CPI(M).

The recent spat between Kerala's Principal Secretary EK Bharat Bhushan and a certain LDF Minister makes an interesting show. Mr Bhushan, who was in charge of the Department of Temple Affairs until recently, requested Mr G Sudhakaran, a Minister in the LDF Government, to allow him access to the report of the vigilance probe into corruption and other malpractices in the Travancore Devaswom Board. The Minister rejected the request.

Thereafter, the senior IAS officer was transferred to New Delhi. After relinquishing his post in Thiruvananthapuram, he turned into a whistleblower and the vigilance report was out in the media. This was the beginning of a frivolous and disgraceful drama in which the Minister provided no-holds-barred entertainment to the people of Kerala.

Mr Bhushan, said Mr Sudhakaran in a television interview, "is the No. 1 criminal in the State Secretariat". He goes on to shower the civil servant with invectives, most of them unprintable. "The only reason that I don't slap him with my footwear is because I am a Minister," he added. The ministerial position did not restrain him from calling all IAS officers in the State Secretariat "dogs". "Write the three letters, IAS, on a board, and hang it around a dog's neck," he said without any hesitation. Unstoppable, Mr Sudhakaran threatened Mr Bharat Bhushan when he asked him to "keep his mouth shut, or he will bear the consequences".

Mr Bhushan, on the other hand, was more restrained. He refused to join issues with the Minister, having exposed him earlier. He merely said that his upbringing did not allow him to respond to the Minister's remarks. Incidentally, Mr Sudhakaran has a long record of showing lack of restraint. He had described Mr AK Antony as "a fourth rate nuisance" after he became the Defence Minister.

Mr Bhushan had sought access to the vigilance probe as delay in releasing it would have only helped the guilty take protective action. He had also reminded Mr Sudhakaran that the Government had declared that it would clean up the Travancore Devaswom Board.

There are two separate boards to manage the affairs of temples in the erstwhile Travancore and Kochi princely states. These were constituted after the Government stripped the temples of their immovable property in the name of land reforms 50 years ago. To compensate these temples, the Government gives them an annual grant and their affairs are managed by boards whose members are nominated by the State Assembly.

The drama within the LDF is not over yet. It is said that Mr Sudhakaran, previously an acolyte of Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, has recently shifted his loyalty to the party boss, Mr Pinarayi Vijayan. Mr Sudhakaran's refusal to release the probe into the board's affairs is because many of those involved are CPI(M) protégés who were pushed in whenever the CPI(M) was in power.

The Kerala Government's ruling party circus is playing out many more scenes. The ADB loan issue has been entertaining the people for quite some time. The Chief Minister's group and Mr Vijayan's supporters have been fighting it out in the open on the signing of the loan agreement. The Chief Minister has openly said that he was kept in the dark on the Cabinet note approving the loan that he had opposed tooth and nail while he was the Opposition leader. But Local Self-Government Department Minister Paloli Mohammed Kutty, who was earlier projected as Chief Minister by Mr Vijayan, had given direct orders to his officer to sign the agreement.

When the controversy was at its peak, leaks from the Government appeared in newspapers, quoting chapter and verse from the Chief Minister's remarks on the file regarding the loan. The Chief Minister's supporters have accused Mr Vijayan's group of leaking this piece of information. Mr Kutty had also a public spat with Home Minister Kodiyari Balakrishnan on the issue of raids on shops that rented and sold banned CDs.

Now, Mr Vijayan and Mr Kutty are publicly defending the Kerala officer who worked on the file pertaining to the loan for which the Government has signed a deal with the ADB. The Rs 1,400 crore loan is mainly meant to upscale urban facilities in the five major municipal corporations of the State.

Mr Vijayan has termed his critics in the party who opposed the loan as "irresponsible ideological fossils" and "Left extremists". He recalled how topmost CPI(M) leader EMS Namboodiripad had warned the party against both these "deviations" - Left extremism and Right socialism. Though he did not mention who these "Left extremists" were, it was obvious to his listeners that the reference was to the Achuthanandan group that remains opposed to the loan.

It is pertinent to recall that Mr Vijayan had opposed Mr Achuthanandan as the Chief Ministerial candidate and had even managed to deny him a party ticket till there was an upheaval by the followers of the latter. The party Polit Bureau in Delhi had to intervene to restore Mr Achuthanandan's rightful position. After the party's victory in the last Assembly election, the Polit Bureau had to intervene again to install Mr Achuthanandan on the Chief Minister's chair. Mr Vijayan hasn't yet forgotten the humiliation.

But the State party chief's warning that such ideological factionalism would gravely affect Kerala's development has a ring of truth about it. It closely resembles the divide that marks the CPI(M) rank and file over the Singur and Nandigram issues in West Bengal.

The people of Kerala have no choice but to watch the Communist circus even if its Government cannot provide them with bread. Kerala has the maximum number of unemployed and the consumer boom in the State is largely built on remittances from the Gulf and other regions of the world to which Malayalees have migrated in search of jobs. Few are keen on reposing faith in the State as trade unions and environmentalists have together ensured that nobody invests there - anyone who dares to invest is driven out under the pretext that it would have adverse effects. Meanwhile, the people can forget about the bread and butter and seek entertainment in the ongoing circus.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, February 09, 2007