KASARGOD: On a day when the CPM was left red-faced after the High Court brought the curtain down on its three-day Kasaragod District Conference, the CITU did its bit to leave the party squirming.
The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the trade union of the CPM, put up a poster welcoming the delegates and leaders to the venue at Ambalathumkara in Madikai panchayat. The poster with the photo of five loading workers at work read: 'Welcome to the red land of Madikai'.
The glitch was that the loading workers were members of the Swatantra Trade Union (STU), the trade union of the Indian Union Muslim League (League).
Both the trade unions have blue shirts as their uniform. The difference is only in their headscarf. STU's headscarf is blue and CITU's is red.
In the welcome poster, CITU photoshopped and changed the blue headscarf of the workers to red.
The STU identified the workers on the posters as N A Muhammed, P A Muhammed Kunhi, Yusuf, and P Assainar of Kasaragod town. "Earlier, CPM used the photographs of its leaders on its posters at the party congress. Now, the party's plight is that it has to red-paint workers of other unions as its own," said A Abdul Rahman, national vice-president of STU.