Thiruvananthapuram, Friday, March 18, 2011: CPM State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan opined that Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan is the undisputed leader of the party. Speaking to the reporters after announcing the poll candidates at the press meet held here, Pinarayi added that when Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan is contesting, the question of who will lead the party in the polls becomes irrelevant.

Announcing the CPM candidates for the polls here, Pinarayi opined that VS will lead the party in the Assembly elections. Earlier reports had suggested that Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishan will lead the party.

Achuthanandan, the senior most leader of CPM will contest from Malampuzha constituency in the upcoming Assembly elections. With this declaration week long uncertainty that existed in the minds of VS supporters has ended.

The state secretariat was forced to change the altitude against Achuthanandan after the available Politburo which met early in the day decided that VS should contest and passed on the decision to the state secretariat, which was in session. Reacting to the developments Achuthanandan stated he would act according to the direction of the party.

It is understood that many top leaders of the VS faction including Dr Thomas Issac, MA Baby wanted to field Achuthanandan in the fray considering the fact that dropping Achuthanandan would adversely effect the poll prospects of the party in the elections.

The chain of events is a repeat of 2006, when CPI (M) was forced to provide seat to VS following wide range of protest by the party cadre. CPI (M) had declared the candidate list minus VS last time while this time CPI (M) had the safety of candidate list not being published. A notable factor of Pinarayi Vijayan’s press conference was he neither denied reports that efforts was there to avoid VS this time.