THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If any CPM member feels that he gets recognised only when the party assigns him for parliamentary work and he is neglected when deputed for party work, that demonstrates his poor understanding of the party and its policies, said CPM PB member S Ramachandran Pillai. In an article written in party mouthpiece Deshabhimani daily on Thursday, SRP said parliamentary ambition, which guides the workers of bourgeois parties, nurtures factionalism in the party.
The detailed explanation by SRP in the party organ was to clarify the position of CPM about the exclusion of central committee member KK Shailaja from the Pinarayi cabinet. It is learnt the clarification issued by the senior-most CPM leader in the state is in the backdrop of growing dissent within the party about the exclusion of Shailaja and sidelining of CC member K Radhakrishnan in cabinet.
With CPM organisational conference set to begin soon, the party doesn’t want any factional issues because of the recent decision to bench a batch of senior leaders. “Among the 26 sitting MLAs who were denied candidature were five ministers and the speaker. Ministers Thomas Isaac, E P Jayarajan and A K Balan who were denied tickets as they completed two terms were CC members.
G Sudhakaran and P Sreeramakrishnan were state committee members and C Raveendranath was a special invitee to state committee. Similarly, when cabinet was formed Shailaja; state secretariat members M M Mani and T P Ramakrishnan and state committee members A C Moideen and Kadakampally Surendran were excluded as the policy was to bring in fresh faces. Altogether, among the 13 who were part of the 2016 government, 12 had to be excluded. Four of them are CC members and two of them were state secretariat members,” SRP explained to prove that a uniform scale was used to select candidates and ministers.
He said the state committee was unanimous in deciding that there was no need to give exemption to one or a few leaders. “All 26 MLAs who were not given chance to contest and all previous ministers should have been given exemption if performance had been the criterion. If we selectively recognise the performance of one or a few, that would create an impression that the recognition is selective. When all of them had performed extremely well, any such selection would have created division and misunderstanding in the party and among the public,” SRP said in the article.