CPI Ministers to boycott Cabinet demanding withdrawal from PM SHRI pact

Unrelenting in its stance that the government either withdraw from the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the Centre for the contentious PM SHRI (Prime Minister Schools for Rising India) scheme or place the pact in cold storage, the Communist Party of India (CPI) on Monday decided to boycott the Cabinet until the first week of November. Further course of action will be decided by the party state council at its meeting on November 4.

The CPI was riled by the fact that the government embraced the scheme against the stated policies of the Left nationally, without any consultation in the Cabinet. 

“The argument that the government joined the scheme for availing of funds is not convincing. We have consistently opposed this policy of the BJP-RSS combine to privatise, communalise, and centralise education. Tamil Nadu refused to sign it and moved 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, G.R. Anil, and P. Prasad in a bid to mollify them, but the talks failed. After the discussion with Mr. Vijayan in Alappuzha, Mr. Viswam said that the government had “not addressed 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. He said the BJP-RSS combine had made the implicit acceptance of the “reactionary” National Education Policy (NEP) central to the release of federal education funding, including PM SHRI and Samagra Shiksha Kerala (SSK) allocations, Mr. Raja reckoned. 

The CPI State secretariat and executive, which convened hastily in Alappuzha, also took strong exception to the government’s “surreptitious” signing on to PM-SHRI, a subject the cabinet had put aside twice for discussion in the Left Democratic Front (LDF). Mr. Raja was categorical in his position that the CPI(M) had run roughshod over the principles of coalition politics and that the CPI would not overlook this serious lapse. 

However, he sought to downplay speculation about the CPI breaking bonds with the coalition in the wake of invitations extended to it by several Congress leaders to join the United Democratic Front (UDF). “Some local leaders might have said such things. The last Congress government in Rajasthan, led by Ashok Gehlot, had joined the PM SHRI scheme, along with the Congress governments in Telangana and Karnataka,” said Mr. Raja, adding that the party would fight while staying within the coalition.