Alappuzha: Despite the best efforts of the party State Secretary to resuscitate the crisis-ridden CPM in Alappuzha, the regional party unit continues to be a concern for the state leadership, with yet another complaint of woman harassment cropping up.
In the latest development, a woman party worker has accused an area committee member of harassing her. However, the district committee is learnt to have refused to receive her complaint. Now the survivor, hailing from the coastal belt of the district, is planning to approach the state leadership with her complaint.
Sources said that the accused, a retired government employee, was in charge of an area committee that included coastal villages.
In her complaint, the woman accused the leader of asking her “favour him” to move up to higher positions within the party hierarchy. The leader also allegedly expressed his willingness to meet her privately and also told her to alert him when her husband was not home.
As she approached the district leadership with a complaint, a senior leader refused to accept her complaint and asked her to go back immediately. She is yet to lodge a police complaint as she wants to seek a resolution in the party forum itself.
CPI(M) district secretary R Nasar was not available for a comment over the phone.
The episode has served yet another jolt to the CPI(M) in Alappuzha, which has been hit hard by factionalism within the senior leaders and allegations of corruption and even tobacco smuggling.
Recently, the party initiated an organizational revamp to address the growing discontent among the party workers at the grassroots against the district leadership. Based on the findings of a two-member committee comprising the party State secretariat members T P Ramakrishnan and P K Biju, the party recently demoted P Chitharanjan MLA from the district secretariat to the district committee and officially rebuked 25 other leaders including district committee members.
The Haripad, Alappuzha North, and Alappuzha South area committees were disbanded and replaced with ad hoc committees while the Alappuzha North and Alappuzha South committees were merged into one. The party also expelled A Shanavas, a CPM strongman and councillor in Alappuzha municipality, for his alleged links with a tobacco smuggling racket.
