The Hindu : Front Page : KPCC to submit memo to Central Government, CEC

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Sunday, Nov 06, 2005

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KPCC to submit memo to Central Government, CEC

Staff Reporter

Chennithala asks intellectuals to ponder on `Kannur issue'

NEW CAMPAIGN: United Democratic Front leaders, including Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Ramesh Chennithala and Indian Union Muslim League general secretary P.K. Kunhalikutty with a man said to be a victim of political violence in Kannur on Saturday.

KANNUR: Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Ramesh Chennithala has said that the `terror situation' created by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kannur district is an affront to a civilised society.

He called upon intellectuals and writers to seriously ponder on solutions to end violation of democratic rights in the district. ``The Congress and the United Democratic Front (UDF) will be open to all corrective proposals that the intellectuals and writers will make,'' Mr. Chennithala said adding that the experiences narrated by dozens of UDF workers at the Civic Rights Protection Convention organised here on Saturday were an eye-opener to the `heinous and brutal' methods used by the CPI(M) to rig elections in the district.

He said that a KPCC sub-committee would study the situation in Kannur on the basis of the experiences disclosed by the participants at the convention and prepare a memorandum to be submitted to the State and Central Governments as well as the Chief Election Commission and the State Election Commission.

The KPCC and the UDF had decided to take up the issue of democratic rights violation in Kannur seriously, Mr. Chennithala said. On November 11, a similar function would be organised at VJT Hall in Thiruvananthapuram in which 50 victims of CPI(M) violence in Kannur would narrate their experiences. On November 24, the former Chief minister A.K. Antony would disburse KPCC's financial assistance to the families of Congress workers killed in political violence.

On November 25, a team of Congress leaders headed by the KPCC chief would visit Malapattom panchayat in the district where all the LDF candidates had been elected unopposed. Local Congress workers from the panchayat told the convention how all the 11 UDF candidates had to withdraw their nomination papers as a result of intimidation and pressure. He said that the convention here marked the birth of a people's movement against the `CPI(M)-sponsored terror' in Kannur.

Historian and former Indian Council of Historical Research chairman M.G.S. Narayanan, who attended the convention as an independent observer, said that whatever he heard from the victims here made him understand that the outcome in many local bodies in Kannur was a `stolen' verdict. ``If what I heard at this function is true, we are headed for a disaster,'' Mr. Narayanan said. Long years of `Marxist misrule' appeared to be imminent as the CPI(M) continued to build `party villages', he said.

Earlier, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Mr. Antony addressed the gathering over the phone.

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