KANNUR: Dealing a body blow to the CPM in the home ground of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and state secretary M V Govindan, district secretariat member T K Govindan left the party and decided to contest as an independent from Kannur’s Taliparamba constituency.
Addressing a press conference on Monday, Govindan said his candidature is a protest against the ‘nepotism’ in allocating the seat to P K Shyamala, M V Govindan’s wife. “Govindan was MLA three times and wanted to pass the baton to his wife,” he said.
T K Govindan said Shyamala’s name was opposed in all the party forums. “Yet she became the candidate,” he said. Her candidature violated party morality and even organisational principles, he said. If the party wanted to field a woman candidate, N Sukanya could have been a better choice as suggested by the district committee, he said.
Govindan also accused Shyamala of denying sanction to an entrepreneur when she was the chairperson of Anthur municipality.
“P Jayarajan was the district secretary at that time, who wanted action against Shyamala. So, Jayarajan was sidelined,” he said, adding that there were irregularities in the conduct of the Happiness Festival in Taliparamba when M V Govindan was the MLA.
T K Govindan questioned the rationale behind the selection of T I Madhusoodhanan for Payyannur, and said people and party workers have doubts about the account statements presented by the party on the election fund and the fund collected to help the family of Dhanaraj, who was killed allegedly by RSS men. “People tend to believe there is truth in what V Kunhikrishnan says on the issue,” Govindan said.
He said all adverse reports on Shyamala’s candidature were blocked by the vested interests and they didn’t reach the higher committees, saying that the silence of Pinarayi in the issue is intriguing.
He added that as an independent he would take support of all sections of people except the ‘communalists.’
Meanwhile, CPM state secretariat member M V Jayarajan said Govindan had become a ‘class traitor’ and by accepting the UDF he has become a ‘political traitor’ too. Jayarajan told reporters that M V Govindan had no role in making Shyamala the candidate.