Thiruvananthapuram, May 12: The CPM today found itself trapped in a time machine that was hurtling towards a Soviet-era setting replete with murder, rebellion, searing historical parallels and the spectre of a split in one of its few strongholds in the country.

Kerala CPM veteran and former chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan today said he was not prepared to “accept” state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s words as final and even appeared to compare his long-time party foe with S.A. Dange, the chairman of the undivided Communist Party, whose stand had stoked rebellion, and sired the birth of the Marxist party called the CPM.

In the CPM’s lexicon, little can be more heretical than equating a serving politburo member and state secretary with Dange.

The comments from the 88-year-old VS, the sole surviving founder member of the CPM from the southern state, were the most blunt yet that dared the Prakash Karat-led organisation to take action against him.

The stunning comments came barely a month after the last CPM congress decided against retaining him in the politburo and in the middle of a murder scandal that is rocking the state.

“There is a democratic way of discussing policy matters in the CPM unlike the Congress or the Muslim League where there is a high command,” Achuthanandan said while answering queries on the party’s Malayalam mouthpiece Deshabhimani criticising his stand on the murder of a CPM rebel.

The write-up, by Deshabhimani’s chief editor V.V. Dakshinamoorthy, toed Vijayan’s line equating T.P. Chandrasekharan, the slain leader, and others who had parted ways with the CPM in 2008 to traitors.

Achuthanandan, who visited Chandrasekharan’s home, however, had hailed him as a “bold communist”.

Chandrasekharan was murdered on the night of May 4. While preliminary investigations pointed to a conspiracy, with the killers suspected to be linked to the CPM, the party has denied the charge and claimed it was a ruling Congress plot to defame it.

A Bengal angle has also crept up on the controversy. Writer-activist Mahasweta Devi also called on Chandrasekharan’s wife and kids at his home in Onchiyam. She later told reporters it was time “the CPM should go from West Bengal, from Kerala and from everywhere”.

Achuthanandan said Dakshinamoorthy was apparently under the impression that the state secretary’s words were final in policy matters affecting the party, but he “could not accept this”.

He then drew similarities between the manner in which Chandrasekharan and others had walked out over ideological differences and the 1964 rebellion in the undivided Communist Party of India over the “anti-party and revisionist” policies of its chairman Dange.

VS, as Achuthanandan is known, recalled that “instead of discussing the differences in a democratic manner, Dange, acting like an autocrat, expelled us from the party calling us class enemies. The 32 members who had walked out then had managed to win lakhs of supporters in the form of the CPM.”

The hint was clear — Vijayan was the new Dange and should have taken the rebels into confidence and discussed their differences instead of terming them traitors.

“Onchiyam, where eight comrades fell to bullets in the past, held a prime place in the history of the Marxist party in Kerala. When the workers there expressed their differences, the leadership should have taken note of their concerns instead of expelling them,” he said.

Asked why Vijayan was not being challenged if he was acting like an autocrat, VS said: “I hope it will be examined and steps to correct the situation will be taken by the party.”

He also reminded that “Dange was later expelled by the CPI”.

Did that mean Vijayan would meet the same fate as Dange? “Time will answer that,” VS replied.

Asked if his words could invite action from the party, a nonchalant VS said he would deal with it when it happens.

A senior Congress leader said the CPM might be “heading for a split” as the central leadership would not be able to ignore the comments.

Vijayan reacted cautiously. Careful not to mention VS by name, he said the matter would be discussed in the party. Another leader, K. Sivadasa Menon, called VS’s statement a naked violation of party discipline.