CPI (M) meet gets under way to discuss internal issues

A crucial five-day meeting of the CPI(M)'s Kerala leadership began here today to discuss the internal issues affecting the party, including the flare-up in the feud between senior leader V S Achuthanandan and state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.
CPI (M) meet gets under way to discuss internal issues

A crucial five-day meeting of theCPI(M)'s Kerala leadership began here today to discuss the internal issuesaffecting the party, including the flare-up in the feud between senior leader VS Achuthanandan and state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.

The party General Secretary Prakash Karat and four otherPolit Bureau members would be attending the sessions as decided by the CPI(M)Central Committee which took a serious note of the convulsions in the stateunit.

According to party sources, the state secretariat would meetthe first two days to structure the agenda and course of discussions for thethree-day state committee session to he held subsequently.

The party has come under a shadow following the brutalmurder of Marxist rebel and RMP leader T P Chandrasekharan at Onjiyam inKozhikode district last month, though the party had repeatedly asserted that ithad nothing to do with the dastardly act.

However, Putting the party leadership on the defensive,several CPI(M) activists had been arrested in connection with the case besidessix members of hit-squad.

The long-running battle between Achuthanandan and Vijayanhas taken a critical turn following the murder with the former openly statingthat the leadership under Vijayan should have sought to bring back dissidentslike Chandrasekharan instead of running them down by dubbing them"betrayers and renegades".

Achuthanandan had also written to the Polit Bureau seekingchanges in the state leadership.

Vijayan and his supporters, known in local politicalparlance as "official leadership", wanted the party centre to take aserious note of Achuthanandan's agressive posturing which they see as nakedviolation of the organisational norms and discipline.

The Central Committee, however, has refused to rush to anyconclusion but wanted the whole gamut of issues to be discussed in the state inthe presence of the Polit Bureau observers.

Another issue to come up in the meet would be the glaringdefeat of the party in the Neyyattinkara Assembly by-poll.

Leaders loyal to Vijayan are of the view that criticalcomments made by Achuthanandan on the state party affairs has contributed tothe LDF's by-poll defeat.

Seeking to turn the table on his rivals, Achuthanandan hasblamed that the controversial speech of Idukki leader M M Mani that the partyhad elimitated political foes in the past as a key factor for the LDF's defeat.

Though Mani has been removed as the CPI(M)'s Idukki districtsecretary, the state committee is expected to consider further action againsthim as large sections think that his speech has dealt a serious blow to theparty's image as a responsible party functioning in a civilised and democraticsystem.

According to observers, though the discussions at themeeting are certain to generate much heat any harsh action against the keyplayers on the opposite sides are unlikely as the central leadership is keen toavoid precipitating the present crisis.

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