'Spare Pinarayi, Govindan and Ragesh, and spoil the party': Rebels warn CPM

On paper, the CPM has become so open that it has provided a WhatsApp number and email ID for the general public to write in their suggestions on how to take the party forward. In practice, as the post-election 'Review Report' has now revealed, the CPM is dismissive of feedback even from party workers.

It is this paradox that two rebel MLAs, T K Govindan and V Kunhikrishnan, pointed out on Thursday. Both of them want the party to own up to the truth.

"The party says the Kannur district committee was responsible for choosing candidates for Taliparamba and Payyannur. Fact is, even M V Govindan was present when the district committee, almost in one voice, said they should not be made candidates," T K Govindan said.

Payyannur MLA V Kunhikrishnan said state secretary M V Govindan himself had admitted that all district committee members, except two or three, wanted T Madhusoodhanan removed as the candidate. "But why was he not changed?" Kunhikrishnan asked.

T K Govindan wondered why the CPM could not admit that it was Kannur district secretary K K Ragesh who had recommended their names.

"On whose recommendation were they chosen?" Govindan asked, adding that the party should come clean on this.

Kunhikrishnan said before taking suggestions from the public, the responsibility of the party leadership was to encourage internal democracy. "What is the point in seeking opinion from the public when the party has remained indifferent to the opinion of party workers," he said, and added: "People might send in their suggestions through WhatsApp and email, but the sad reality is that they would not be acted upon."

Kunhikrishnan said the CPM leadership should listen to what the lower units of the party have to say. "The CPM has become a party that has no respect for internal democracy, and this can push the party into authoritarianism. It is this tendency to ignore views of lower committees and party workers that is distancing the party from the people," the Payyannur MLA said.

Govindan said carbon copies of discussions that were held in the lower committees from the branch committee and up were made available to all higher committees.

"If these carbon copies, which contained the sense of party workers, were taken seriously, these candidates would not have been chosen," Govindan said.

Both the rebels felt that individual leaders were unnecessarily spared in the Review Report. "Neither the then Chief Minister nor the state secretary had the spine to oppose Vellappally Natesan's toxic anti-Muslim comments. His remarks challenged Kerala's secular principles, and yet these leaders did not utter a word against him," Govindan said.  

He said the party had failed to shake off the suspicion of a CPM-BJP deal. "How did (Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister) Yogi Adithyanath's message come to be read at the Global Ayyappa Sangamam?" Govindan asked.

"He would not have voluntarily offered to give the message. Someone should have asked him, and who was that?" he wanted to know. He said that the repeated postponement of the SNC Lavalin case and Veena Vijayan's bribery scandal hinted at a CPM-BJP deal.

He termed as a 'betrayal' the Review Report that had spared leaders who were responsible for the election defeat.