The Hindu : Front Page : CPI(M) State meet begins today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 11, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Front Page

Front Page

CPI(M) State meet begins today

C. Gouridasan Nair

Heavy agenda involving the health of the party and the government it heads

— Photo: H. Vibhu

Red salute: LDF convener Vaikom Viswan hoisting the party flag to mark the beginning of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) State conference in Kottayam on Sunday.

KOTTAYAM: It is stocktaking time for Kerala CPI(M). Gone are three tumultuous years, a period that saw the party move from the Opposition ranks to government; also a time of trouble during which factionalism has been once again in full view, necessitating repeated interventions from the Central leadership.

As the four-day State conference of the party, being held in preparation for the 19th Party Congress, gets under way here on Monday, the 561 delegates attending it will have a heavy agenda, involving the health of the party and the government, to deal with.

The delegates’ session of the conference will be inaugurated by Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat. The conference will conclude on February 14 with a red volunteers’ march after electing a State committee, very likely without balloting as had happened in Malappuram.

Guidelines

With factionalism threatening to rock the boat, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau has been keeping a close tab on the party organisation in Kerala. It handed down a set of guidelines for the conduct of the party conferences at the lower levels. This had a salutary effect in checking gross misuse of numerical superiority by rival factions. The Polit Bureau did not hesitate to intervene even after conclusion of these conferences when instances of factional activity were brought to its notice. This resulted in the Thiruvananthapuram district conference being reconvened to annul the list of delegates to the Kottayam conference and adopt a consensus panel.

The Polit Bureau had earlier sent a strong message to the State party unit by suspending Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and party State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan from the Polit Bureau. The guidelines will be operational at the State conference, and that should ensure smooth conduct of the elections, which, in the normal course, will be all about omission of older and ailing leaders and induction of young leaders.

This will be a continuation of the process of generational change in evidence in the State CPI(M) over the past one decade. That will, given the present factional equations and outcomes of the elections in the district and lower level conferences, cannot but result in persons opposed to Mr. Achuthanandan getting entry into the higher echelons of the State party.

The journey from Malappuram to Kottayam has not only been one through factionalism. The party had scored impressive victories in electoral arenas during the last three years, beginning with the local body elections in which the Left Democratic Front (LDF) secured close to 50 per cent of the vote share. The Assembly elections in 2006 proved headier still with the LDF winning 99 seats, of which 65 were won by the CPI(M) and the Independents fielded by it.

The Thiruvambadi byelection, the only bypoll to be held after the LDF swept to power in 2006, saw the CPI(M) scoring a stellar win in a UDF bastion. But the 2006 Assembly election was not without its share of suspense what with Mr. Achuthanandan being denied the party ticket and later being fielded following public display of displeasure about the decision by party cadres and consequent intervention by the Polit Bureau.

The element of mistrust it brought to the fore haunts the party and the LDF government, a matter of great worry for the Polit Bureau, especially because of the coming Lok Sabha elections.

The Polit Bureau’s attempt over the past several months has been to take the party away from personality-centred loyalties to cohesiveness where different shades of opinion could have balanced representation.

Membership up

The Kottayam conference is very likely to become the stage for such calibrated, decisive intervention. Party State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan is on record that with the Kottayam conference, factionalism will become a thing of the past.

According to him, despite all the media reports about factionalism, the party membership has gone up by 20,439 over the past three years and an additional 20 lakh people have joined various organisations owing allegiance to the party.

The party has weathered heavy odds during the last three years and will concentrate on snuffing out the remnants of factionalism, he says.

The party State committee met here briefly on Sunday to review the preparations for the meet. The party State secretariat had also met.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page