Thiruvananthapuram: The CPI-CPM tussle over CPI’s demand for the post of deputy leader of opposition in the assembly intensified on Saturday, with senior CPI functionary and former minister C Divakaran questioning leader of opposition Pinarayi Vijayan’s authority to dismiss the demand.“Who is Vijayan to say all this? He is not the last word in CPM,” Divakaran told television channels.He said Vijayan should not have assumed the post of leader of opposition after the LDF, led by him as chief minister for two consecutive terms, suffered a severe electoral setback. Vijayan should have taken responsibility and stayed out of the race, he said. Had he stepped aside, the people might have called him back, as they did in the case of V S Achuthanandan when CPM initially decided not to field him in the election.“I expected a higher and broader communist approach from Vijayan, but that did not happen. I feel deeply hurt, resentful and strongly protest against this,” Divakaran said.He said Vijayan’s approach is creating serious problems for LDF and that CPM had a greater responsibility to compromise and strengthen the coalition.Rejecting CPM’s argument that CPI is seeking a post it had never held, Divakaran said the deputy leader’s position is only a political recognition, without real authority or special privileges.“If CPI has asked for a position it never held, why is there such a hullabaloo? Nobody has been authorised to make final statements on an issue under bilateral discussion,” he said, adding that CPI would not retreat from its demand.“CPM’s problem is that it cannot accept CPI getting the post,” he said, warning that LDF would crumble if CPI left the front.Referring to an article by CPM state secretariat member C N Mohanan in Deshabhimani, Divakaran said CPI would not respond to “substandard observations”. Mohanan had questioned CPI’s political influence by asking whether it could secure even 5,000 votes in an assembly constituency.Divakaran said CPI’s contribution to the Left movement could not be measured merely by electoral figures. The party’s concern, he said, was not the chief minister’s post but the survival of the Left movement.
