CPI(M) extends olive branch to CPI on the PM-SHRI controversy

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] held out an olive branch to the Communist Party of India (CPI) on Saturday, after the latter accused the government of “whimsically” inking a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Central government to secure the PM-SHRI federal allocation for school education, sans consultation with the cabinet or the Left Democratic Front (LDF).

General Education Minister V Sivankutty, who authorised the controversial Central-State accord, called on CPI State Secretary Binoy Viswam at the party’s headquarters at M N Smarakam in Thiruvananthapuram to clarify matters. He later told reporters that the talks were cordial and had helped clear the air.

On Wednesday, CPI State Secretary Binoy Viswam sparked a fraught phase in coalition relations by publicly chastising the government for “surreptitiously” signing the agreement, which, he stated, undermined the Left’s national resistance to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) insidious bid to saffronise schooling.

Mr Viswam said Kerala had taken the Centre’s bait linking the release of PM-SHRI funds to compliance with the “RSS-inspired” New Education Policy (NEP).

Mr Viswam dashed off a protest letter to the LDF convenor, T.P. Ramakrishnan, and other allies, expressing the CPI’s deep anguish over the “breach of coalition propriety and the cabinet’s collective responsibility”.

CPI(M) stance

Former Law Minister and CPI(M) leader told reporters in Palakkad that the cabinet had signed comparable MoUs to secure federal grants the Centre owed Kerala in the Health, Agriculture and Higher Education Sectors with the CPI’s concurrence.

He said a certain amount of flexibility was inevitable in Central-State relations. Kerala accepted Central funding for Health, Higher Education, and Agriculture without agreeing to any conditions that the State believed would advance the RSS agenda or undermine federalism, he said. 

For one, Mr Balan said, the Central government had insisted that the State display the Prime Minister’s image and the Central government’s emblem in hospitals funded by the federal government. “We agreed to place the Central government symbol and not the PM’s photograph and still got the funds”, he said.

NCERT gambit

Comparably, Mr Balan said, Kerala defeated NCERT’s gambit to saffronise education by removing the Gandhi Assassination and Mughal rule from history textbooks. “Kerala published new textbooks, which preserved the deleted chapters”, he added. 

Mr Balan said Mr Sivankutty had followed the cabinet’s established tack in getting federal funding without compromising the LDF’s political and ideological line.

“Mr Sivankutty upheld the interests of 40 lakh students in the State. “Kerala needs the sizeable federal allocation, an estimated R 1,446 crores, for modernising classrooms, distributing lump sum grants to needy students, paying 7000-odd teachers, procuring the latest learning aids, including computers and state-of-the-art laboratories”, he said. 

Mr Balan said the MoU was not the last word in the LDF. “The LDF will discuss the matter threadbare, address the concerns of the allies and arrive at a consensus before moving ahead”, he added.