KOCHI, Dec. 6 -- With hardly 48 hours to go for the first phase of the election to local bodies in Kerala, the electorate is witnessing a bizarre phenomenon in the State. The CPI(M), Kerala's largest political outfit with presence in every nook and corner, has been left leaderless and rudderless. Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister and the one-time star campaigner of the party has not moved out of his high security Cliff House residence in the State capital for the last three weeks. Vijayan (76), at the autumn of his life, remains reclusive and it is the local commissars who go around the State soliciting votes.
M A Baby, polit bureau member and party ideologist, said that it was the unanimous decision of the CPI(M) State Committee not to exp...