CPM goes soft on Mundur rebels
The CPM district secretariat which met here on Wednesday to initiate action against the dissidents, who had held a convention and announced a parallel area committee, deferred its plans owing to the intervention of the party’s state leadership.
The district secretariat meet was attended by leaders including, central committee member A Vijayaraghavan and state secretariat member A K Balan.
After the meeting, Balan said the state leadership of the party would resolve the problems in the Mundur area committee.
“There will be no disciplinary action against anyone. The meeting in Mundur was just an organisational matter. There was no split in the party or any parallel area committee,” he said.
The dissident leader Gokuldas, who was demoted from the Mundur area committee to the Kongad local committee, said they had intimated their decision on the state of affairs in the district leadership to the CPM state leadership.
“Even as action was being contemplated against me by the CPM district leadership, various branch and local committees had intimated their reservations to the state leadership. I had written a personal letter to CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan about the activities of a coterie, who have no mass base,” said Gokuldas. “We expect a favourable response from the state leadership,” he added.
After the convention held on Tuesday, sources pointed out that the party state leadership had intervened and told the dissidents not to appear on TV channels, and they adhered to it.
“We had sent a fax message to the party state leadership to intervene and settle the matter. We also expect a favourable response,” said CPM Mundur local committee secretary Lakshmanan.
At the convention of the dissidents held at Mundur on Tuesday, Gokuldas blamed only a section of the district leadership and not the state or central leaderships of the CPM. Moreover, the dissidents claimed that they were the real communists and would die so.
The fact that the CPM had already lost the two municipalities of Shoranur and Ottapalam - once their bastions - in the last local body elections has prompted the state leadership to intervene. It is only in Ottapalam that the CPM was supporting the Congress dissidents and could regain power.
The parting of ways of Gokuldas would spell doom for the CPM in the six panchayats under the Mundur area committee, where they are ruling now. Except Puduppariyaram, the remaining five panchayats of Kongad, Keralassery, Mundur, Akkathethara and Malampuzha will be lost once the leaders of the dissident faction are expelled from the party.
The fact that four of the six panchayats are in the Malampuzha constituency represented by Opposition Leader V S Achuthanandan, is not a problem for the official leadership. If at any time, Achuthanandan decides to openly back the dissidents, the factionalism could spread to other parts of the district and the state, sources in the CPM said, on condition of anonymity. Earlier, former MP N N Krishnadas was demoted from the state committee to the Palakkad area committee and Mundur area committee secretary Gokuldas was suspended after the Malappuram state conference of the CPM owing to factionalism.