Meaningful meeting with Gowri Amma

By O.J.George

Kottayam: After 15 years, V.S.Achuthanandan went to K.R.Gowri Amma, of course to greet her when she turned 90.

But the gesture was quite significant, even though Achuthanandan did not make any controversial mention.

But reading between the lines, there was something etched in his speech. After he hailed the contributions of Gowri Amma as a minister in various stints of LDF government, he referred to her functioning as a minister in the UDF government.

Let the people assess the fact whether she got intensified recognition and praise or not while she was in the UDF, he observed.

The rider about one comment escaped from media analysis. Achuthanandan urged Gowri Amma to continue to serve the people with the same verve as she used to have while she was in the CPM.

Even if everybody else got lost out on the meaningful comment, Gowri Amma retorted she did not leave the CPM, but she was ousted. Now she has her own party and she does not have to look for another.

Let the gesture of Achuthanandan be noticed. He went to her house at Chathanad and ate out from the plantain leaves placed for her by Gowri Amma. He broke from the routine vegetarianism and tasted the choicest fish curry.

These days his bete noires in the CPM were keeping him out of functions in which he should have been legitimately part of. EMS birth centenary function was one event among many.

He was not called in when the CPM leaders discussed issues with the CPI leaders at the AKG Centre the other day. The meaning was clear, VS was being kept out. That message was being sent out to the cadres by the state party leadership.

The rival faction wants VS to simply pop off from the scene after the central committee takes whatever decision on July 11 and 12.

The indications given out by VS in this regard are clear. He would not vanish into thin air just as Nripen Chakroborty had disappeared or ex-Speaker Somnath Chatterjee may retire into nothingness.

VS would get fora from nowhere and be in the limelight. His rivals want him to toe their line, which on all accounts is not possible for him. Even though his rivals have the party apparatus with him in full, they cannot decimate him.

The call to Gowri Amma could be a pointer to what would follow if drastic action is taken against him at the central committee.