The cultural programme Manaveeyam of CPI(M)-led LDF government of Kerala was criticised for the extravagance of the programmes and the elitist audience to which the ps catered, and also for the fact that the "people's art and culture" gave way to bourgeois concepts under the influence of neoliberalism. Vijayan also led an ideological debate against social democratic deviations. When the leader of Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad (a pro-CPI(M) Science forum) M. P. Parameswaran went ahead with his "theory of the fourth world" campaign, it was alleged that a theory that had been opposed by the late ideologue of the party, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, was now being resurrected after his death. Vijayan and his followers resisted P. Govinda Pillai's controversial critical remarks against A. K. Gopalan, Namboodiripad and others on ideological grounds. Though, initially, CPI(M) leadership was forced to expel Parameswaran and Depromote Pillai from the state committee because of the high reputation that Vijayan enjoyed among the party supporters, writers and the literate, later the Social Democrats group got control over the CPI(M) organisation. There were similar attacks against other left-leaning intellectuals like Dr. B. Ekbal (leading to Ekbal's expulsion from CPI(M)) who were trying to re-examine the direction of left-wing politics in Kerala.