Thiruvananthapuram: There is never a dull moment when the ‘protagonist’ in the news is top CPI-M lady leader Chintha Jerome. After a government order last week contradicted her previous stand over her salary dues, another one has surfaced regarding her PhD thesis submitted two years back containing a glaring error.
Young Jerome is the chairperson of the Kerala State Youth Commission.
Her dissertation is titled ‘A the ideological foundation of Malayalam commercial cinema in the neoliberal times,’ for which she was awarded a PhD in English Literature from the Kerala University in 2021.
Detractors of Jerome have come out with a fundamental mistake in her thesis where she has written that the Malayalam poem titled ‘Vazhakkula’ was penned by Vyloppilli while it was originally written by another hugely popular poet Changampuzha Krishna Pillai.
Jerome’s principal guide for her thesis was the then Pro VC of Kerala University P.P.Ajayakumar.
Meanwhile, after the social media going ga-ga over this major mistake, the CPI-M youth leaders are trying their best to defend her stating that this is nothing but a technical error and there is no reason to blow this up.
‘Save the University Campaign’, a committee which is basically a group aligned to the Congress party, that is very active to bring out errors and omissions happening at the Universities on account of the way the CPI-M backed organisations are running it flouting rules and regulations, have now taken the issue of Jerome’s thesis.
They have already written to the Vice-chancellor that her thesis has to be reviewed and they have decided that if nothing happens they will take the issue to the Chancellor-Governor Arif Mohammed Khan.
A media critic on condition of anonymity said that it’s most unfortunate that this has happened and what’s more surprising is the way the youth leaders of the CPI-M are now trying to defend it.
“They say it’s a mere technical error and nothing beyond that. Many have started to ask, had such a thing happened to a young Congress lady leader, all hell would have broken loose. Kerala has seen on how the CPI-M has been dealing with issues in the education sector as they have one set of rules when they are in opposition and another when they are in power. What the Left fails to understand is that the education sector will take a beating if compromises are made,” said the critic.
–IANS