Alappuzha: Amid speculations of severe infighting within CPM in the Left stronghold Alappuzha, the CPI leadership on Monday rejected reports of 200 CPM cadres in Kayamkulam joining it after bowing out of the lead constituent party.
CPI district secretary T J Angelos said that people would realise the “deliberate attempts to drive a wedge” between the two key Left constituents ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
“There is no basis for the report that 200 CPM cadres have joined the CPI. Nobody has approached the CPI with any such requests. And no one should use the name of CPI for bargaining by giving such news,” he said in a statement.
His comments assume significance as the Left Front is striving hard to retain its sitting seat Alappuzha, the only seat in Kerala that the Left parties managed to win in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Meanwhile, the CPM leadership said the party has started the preparations for the parliamentary elections and the LDF is going forward strong as one unit”.
“The CPI leader himself has rejected the reports. The same is intended to drive a wedge between us with the polls in sight. However, the truth is that the CPM is going strong, functioning as a single unit. We have started camps and meetings and are confident of retaining the seat again,” K H Babujan, a CPM district secretariat member told Onmanorama.
However, this time the CPM has its task its task cut out as it’s fighting attrition. Veteran leader G Sudhakaran is severely dissatisfied with his being omitted from the party state committee and is indulging in veiled criticisms.
A few months back, 222 party members in Kuttanad, a traditional bastion, left the party and joined the other main left-wing constituent.
The fissures there began at least a year ago. The CPM leadership failed to resolve the discontent at the grassroots level and it assumed gigantic proportions as days rolled by. The rebels were mainly protesting against the “authoritarian and biased” attitude of the CPM’s Kuttanad area committee leadership.
Not long before that, the left-ruled Alappuzha municipality witnessed a rare change of guard as part of the party’s attempt to end infighting. Soumya Raj, the incumbent chairperson, was replaced by K K Jayamma. It was part of a compromise formula worked out between rival party factions, initiated by party district secretary R Nasar.
A two-member party inquiry commission led by State Secretariat members T P Ramakrishnan and P K Biju later confirmed factionalism behind the decision to overlook Jayamma initially. Based on the commission’s finding, the CPM district secretariat initiated disciplinary action against P P Chitharanjan MLA, who was demoted from the district secretariat to the district committee. 25 other leaders, including district committee members, were publicly rebuked. The Harippad, 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.
