Narayanan (top), Thomas

New Delhi, March 15: CPM members chortled in Parliament today over fresh Wikileaks revelations that they saw as evidence of the US influencing several UPA I decisions, including cabinet reshuffles and the votes against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

CPM member P. Rajeeve raised the issue in zero hour in the Rajya Sabha. He claimed that US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks had revealed “the pressure by the US on India and the pro-US positions of our government on several issues”.

Rajeeve and CPM politburo member Brinda Karat said the dropping of Mani Shankar Aiyar as petroleum minister under purported US pressure was “shameful”.

But what perturbed Rajeeve the most was a cable that referred to certain bureaucrats in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) as members of a “Keralite mafia”.

“Wikileaks has talked about the ‘Kerala mafia’. This is the way your (UPA government’s) strategic partner refers to senior bureaucrats in India. This is very shameful. We want a response from the government,” said Rajeeve, who is from Kerala.

A cable the US embassy sent to Washington in 2005 described M.K. Narayanan’s appointment as national security adviser as an addition to the “Keralite mafia” in the PMO. Narayanan is now Bengal governor.

“Along with principal secretary T.K.A. Nair, Narayanan constitutes what is now a Keralite ‘mafia’ in the PMO,” the cable said.

It added: “In a bureaucratic culture dominated by north Indian Hindi speakers, this Keralite lock on the PM’s inner bureaucratic circle represents something of an anomaly, which could in the long term create new fault lines around the Prime Minister.”

The controversy over the appointment of chief vigilance commissioner P.J. Thomas, who too is from Kerala, has had many in government circles talking about how some of India’s top bureaucrats, particularly in the PMO, are from Kerala.

The country’s topmost bureaucrat, cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, appointed to the post in June 2007, is on his second extension and is already the third-longest-serving Indian cabinet secretary.

Among the Keralites in the PMO are current national security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon and additional secretary R. Gopalakrishnan. The other senior bureaucrats from the southern state include foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and home secretary G.K. Pillai.

CPM member Sitaram Yechury demanded a statement from the government on the subject of kowtowing to the US.