KOCHI: The official faction of CPI got an upper hand in the Ernakulam district committee after the four-day district conference concluded on Monday. K M Dinakaran, who is identified as a close aide of party secretary Kanam Rajendran, was elected district secretary replacing former MLA P Raju who held the post for a consecutive three terms. The Kanam faction got the majority in the 52-member district council also.
Dinakaran garnered 28 votes while his opponent K N Sugathan got only 23 votes after an election was held for the district secretary post as consensus could not be reached at the meeting.
Kanam faced severe criticism at the conference for his stand supporting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPM on several issues. The party criticised the CM in its working report which was presented at the conference on Saturday. The report said the functioning of the government was not satisfactory.
The conference also witnessed election of delegates for the state conference. Owing to differences of opinion among delegates, the election supervised by former minister K Chandrasekharan was delayed till night.