CPI ministers to boycott cabinet and demand withdrawal from PM SHRI pact

The Communist Party of India (CPI) remained adamant in its stand that the government would either withdraw from the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the Center for the controversial PM SHRI (Prime Minister Schools for Rising India) scheme or the pact would be kept on ice. Therefore, the Communist Party of India (CPI) decided on Monday to boycott the cabinet until the first week of November. The party state council will decide on further steps during its meeting on November 4.

The CPI was outraged that the government embraced the plan, contrary to the policies of the left at the national level, without any consultation in the cabinet.

“The argument that the government has signed on to the fund mobilization scheme is not convincing. We have consistently opposed this policy of the BJP-RSS combine to privatise, communalise and centralize education. Tamil Nadu refused to sign it and went to court. Why can’t Kerala do that?” asked D. Raja, general secretary of the CPI, in a conversation with The Hindu over the phone.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan held meetings with CPI State Secretary Binoy Viswam and CPI Ministers K. Rajan, GR Anil and P. Prasad in an attempt to mollify them but the talks failed. After the meeting with Mr Vijayan in Alappuzha, Mr Viswam said the government had “failed to address the issues raised by the CPI”.

Meanwhile, Mr Raja told reporters in Delhi that the CPI would not settle for anything less than ‘freezing or withdrawing’ the MoU. Saying that the BJP-RSS combine had made implicit acceptance of the ‘reactionary’ National Education Policy (NEP) central while releasing federal education funding, including allocations from PM SHRI and Samagra Shiksha Kerala (SSK), Mr Raja opined.

The CPI’s state secretariat and executive, which hastily met in Alappuzha, also strongly objected to the government’s “covert” signing up to PM-SHRI, an issue that the cabinet had twice set aside for discussion within the Left Democratic Front (LDF). Mr. Raja was categorical in his position that the CPI(M) had flouted the principles of coalition politics and that the CPI would not overlook this serious mistake.

He, however, sought to downplay speculation of the CPI severing ties with the coalition in the wake of several Congress leaders’ invitations to join the United Democratic Front (UDF). “Some local leaders may have said such things. The last Congress government in Rajasthan, led by Ashok Gehlot, had joined the Prime Minister’s SHRI scheme along with the Congress governments in Telangana and Karnataka,” Raja said, adding that the party would fight while remaining within the coalition.