ALAPPUZHA: Factionalism, which has been brewing for many years in the CPM unit in the Communist bastion of Alappuzha, has boiled over with leaders fighting it out in the open after the assembly elections. On Thursday, it took a turn for the worse with a poster appearing in Punnapra calling senior leader and Works Minister G Sudhakaran a ‘traitor’.
Group rivalry in Alappuzha had turned intense in 2015. Back then, at the party’s state conference in the coastal city, the official faction led by Pinarayi Vijayan took a vice-like grip of the party, decimating the rival V S Achuthanandan faction. Achuthanandan walked out of the conference in protest against the official faction’s move to sideline him.
However, in the 2016 assembly elections, the LDF made a remarkable comeback and the CPM won six seats in the district. The LDF emerged victorious in 8 out of 9 constituencies. That situation has changed, if the latest developments are any indication. G Sudhakaran is the prime target of the attacks. The poster in Punnapra said “Sudhakaran is a traitor and the martyrs would not pardon him”.
Bid to make Sudhakaran scapegoat: CPM leader
ON Wednesday, a Facebook post by U Prathibha which read “Pottane chattan chathichal, chattane daivam chathikkum” (God would punish those who harm the innocent) went viral and it was described as an attack on Sudhakaran. The Kayamkulam MLA, however, said her FB account was hacked and that she did not have any role in it. She removed it and came up with another post attacking her detractors. That too was widely shared and discussed. Prathibha lodged a complaint with the district police saying her account was hacked.
Early this month, a former SFI leader and wife of a personal staff member of Sudhakaran, filed a complaint with the Ambalappuzha police stating that the minister’s comments at a press conference brought disrepute to her and they could create communal rift.The root cause of the latest developments is the appraisal done by the CPM district committee after the assembly elections which said the party’s performance would be worse this time. The preliminary assessment said the CPM may lose a few sitting seats. This is likely to create further rumblings in the party once the results are announced on May 2.
A district leader of the CPM said the attack on Sudhakaran is intended to make him a scapegoat if the party loses its sitting seats.”He has been an efficient minister and his management of the Works Department was excellent compared to his predecessors in the past two decades. Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac too was an excellent minister. The decision to deny them seats in the assembly polls was a mistake and it would deal the CPM a big blow. It will reflect in the election results.
The number of seats held by the CPM in the district will come down and it will create a rift in the party in the days to come. A section of party leaders are now trying to target Sudhakaran and put the blame on him for the likely debacle,” he said.
“Sudhakaran was a strong opponent of Achuthanandan. Now the former VS loyalists are taking advantage of the situation. If Sudhakaran is sidelined, next generation leaders can become key players in Alappuzha. The complaint against him by his personal staff member’s wife was a planned one. Sudhakaran foresaw these developments and made a statement that ‘political criminalism’ prevails in the district,” the leader said.