A true communist should act according to the party programme on the judiciary, boomed the CPM mouthpiece Deshabhimani in rebuke to Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan. What’s the country’s Constitution when the party’s constitution deems it fit to tar the courts or the CBI?

The CBI, which in a report to the Kerala High Court, accused Achuthanandan’s bete noire, state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, of showing “ugly haste” in awarding a hydropower project to Canadian firm SNC Lavalin, has been dismissed by the CPM as politically manipulable. Achuthanandan, embarrassingly, has refused to toe the party’s conspiracy theory, staunchly sticking up for constitutional procedure. Whether this stems from genuine conviction or an understandable glee in seeing his arch-rival compromised, Achuthanandan has certainly braved the formidable CPM machine. A couple of years ago, Vijayan and Achuthanandan were suspended from the party’s politburo for their squabbling, and the rivalry between the two now threatens to split the cadre along the seams. Even as the CM throws his weight behind the rule of law, ministers have been actively campaigning for Vijayan, as per party dictum. For a party used to exacting standards of discipline and cohesion, this is an all-new low.

There is palpable discomfort among the CPM and its LDF allies in this campaign to vilify the CBI and declare the judiciary irreparably class-biased. After all, this is the same party that stood up for absolute decorum when a constitutional authority like the Election Commission was clouded by personal difference — why is it that when the matter concerns the party’s own, the CPM lashes out with such

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