Left intellectual and state planning board vice-chairman Prof Prabhat Patnaik has said the Left stand on the issue carried little credibility.

The former JNU faculty member, who is against the neo-liberal economic policies of the CPM faction led by Pinarayi Vijayan, has also observed that the Lavalin issue and the Left alliance with the People's Democratic Party had led to the alienation of voters in the last elections.

Patnaik has aired his opinion on the website macroscan.com, meant for providing an alternative to conservative and mainstream positions in economics.

When Congress legislators pointed out Patnaik's observations regarding the Lavalin issue in the Assembly on Tuesday, the CM said he had always given useful suggestions to the government.

In his article, Reflections on the Left, Patnaik said the most significant feature of the recent elections was the loss suffered by the Left. A certain loss of urban support for the Left became unavoidable when it broke its ties with the UPA. In Kerala, such alienation from the Left was compounded by certain specific local factors : the secular segments of the electorate could not accept the Left's relationship with the People's Democratic Party and the Left's stand on the SNC-Lavalin deal carried little credibility, said Patnaik.