As a sign of what is in store for the CPI in the capital district, a Local Committee Secretary of the party resigned his post and gave up his primary membership of the party in protest against the party’s decision to field Bennet Abraham as the party’s candidate for the Lok Sabha elections here.
Poovachal Sudheer, secretary of Poovachal local committee and a former state committee member of the AIYF, told mediapersons here on Friday that during an AIYF agitation, he had to face brutal attack in the hands of goons engaged by Jubilee Medical college, Karakonam while Bennet Abraham was serving as the director.
Sudheer also pointed out that in 2009, Soumya, a student of the Karakonam Medical college, committed suicide by jumping from the fourth floor of the medical college following harassment from the management.
On October 7, 2009, as part of the agitation against the self-financing management’s move to market education, Sudheer along with other AIYF activists had organised an agitation against the medical college. The activists suffered serious injuries and had to undergo treatment in the Medical College Hospital and Ayurveda Hospital in Poojappura for one-and-a-half months.
Sudheer said that then AIYF state president P S Supal and state general secretary V S Sunil Kumar had called for registering a murder case against Bennet Abraham who was the director of the medical college. “The CPI state leadership and CPI district leadership had called for charging a murder case against Bennet,” Sudheer said.
He urged the CPI leadership to make clear to which frontal organisation of the CPI Bennet proved his organisational skills and commitment to Communist values.
“Moreover Bennet had openly stated that his loyalty was to the CPM which gave him the post of PSC member,” he said.
Sudheer said that Bennet was one of the directors of the two medical colleges which had objected to sign the agreement with the LDF Government regarding self-financing colleges.
He said Bennet’s name was not included in the list of candidates recommended to the CPI district council. When the finalised list was given in the district council again, only 9 of the 53 members supported it. Others kept away from the meeting.
While C Divakaran MLA, was entrusted to pacify the leaders and convened a meeting of the District Council, area and local committee the other day, only 48 of the 300-strong leadership attended the meeting.
Sudheer said it was impossible for him to work in a party which had lost all Communist values and said that he was resigning his post and giving up the membership of the party.
He said activists with similar mindset would follow suit in the coming days.