Thrissur: K S Russal Raj, grandson of veteran Communist leader K V Pathrose, has been appointed the new DYFI district secretary in Thrissur. He replaces Sharath Prasad, who was removed after the leak of an audio clip in which he allegedly made grave corruption charges against senior CPM leaders.
K V Pathrose, popularly known as Kunthakkaran Pathrose, was one of the founding leaders of the Communist Party in Kerala and the convenor of the historic Punnapra-Vayalar struggle. 

The controversy erupted when an audio recording surfaced, purportedly of Sharath speaking to CPM Nadathara East local committee member Nibin Sreenivasan. In it, Sharath is heard alleging that senior district leaders amassed wealth through illegal "collections," with local secretaries receiving around ₹10,000, district leaders over ₹25,000, and those in higher committees up to ₹1 lakh.

The clip also mentions leaders’ involvement in major business deals, naming Kerala Bank vice-chairman M K Kannan, MLA and CPM state committee member A C Moideen, and corporation standing committee chairman Varghese Kandamkulathy.

Following the audio clip leak, Sharath was stripped of his posts in both DYFI and CPM and demoted to a branch-level member. While he initially claimed the audio was old, he later dismissed it as fabricated. Nibin, however, confirmed the conversation took place. Notably, Nibin himself had been expelled from the party after alleging corruption in seven cooperative banks under the Mannuthy area committee, and the audio surfaced soon after his removal.