ALAPPUZHA: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is trying to coerce the judiciary and the media in the State into submission with a view to hiding its inefficiencies and silencing criticism, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Ramesh Chennithala has said.

Inaugurating the State conference of the Government School Teachers' Union (GSTU) here on Wednesday, Mr. Chennithala said the Kerala High Court order entrusting the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) with the investigation of the Lavalin case had infuriated the CPI(M).

Its cadres have been up in arms against judges of the High Court since then.

He said the agitations organised the CPI(M), including a symbolic banishment of a former Chief Justice, were uncultured forms of protest.

The allegation being made by CPI (M) leaders of a media syndicate operating in the State capital is part of a tacit move to gag the press.

The CPI(M) ploy is to attack and unnerve journalists who might reveal the shortfalls of the administration. Such moves are dangerous to democracy.

Mr. Chennithala said the State administration had deteriorated into an ordinance raj. Ordinances should be promulgated only in extraordinary circumstance, but the Government seems to have forgotten that.

The proposed Higher Education Council would affect the independence of universities and make Vice-Chancellors effigies. The council will make universities part of the office of Education Minister. The result will be total chaos in higher education, he said.

Mr. Chennithala alleged that the committees formed by the Government to reform the Kerala Education Rules and revise curriculum had only workers of the CPI(M)'s feeder organisations as its members.

GSTU State president K. Vikraman Nair presided over the meeting.

Those who spoke included MLAs K.C. Venugopal and B. Babuprasad, District Congress Committee (DCC) president A.A. Shukkorr and KPCC general secretary M.K. Raghavan.

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