Amid reports of factionalism, the Communist Party of India (CPI) put up a united front at a public meeting marking the beginning of its 24th State conference in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.
With both senior leaders K.E. Ismail and C. Divakaran who have been raising contrarian views to the leadership, on the dais, State Secretary Kanam Rajendran emphatically proclaimed that the party would unitedly implement its decisions.
Both Mr. Divakaran and Mr. Ismail had earlier opposed the 75-year age limit set for CPI State council members, seeing it as a ploy to keep them out of the top decision-making bodies of the party. Their absence from the flag-carrying procession ahead of the conference on Thursday also fuelled rumours of factionalism in the party.
However, both of them appeared to make light of these rumours on Friday, with Mr. Divakaran giving his thumbs up for the age-limit rule while coming out of the public meeting, and with Mr. Ismail saying that he was unable to attend the flag-carrying procession due to personal commitments.
‘Mere rumours’
At the public meeting, Mr. Rajendran sought to portray the rumours of factionalism as attempts made by the bourgeois media to hijack the serious political discussions that would happen in the State conference.
“Quite a lot of news reports about the conference have been making the rounds. I am not going into the details on the persons who might be behind these rumours. The CPI has the innate strength to overcome such attempts to tarnish the party’s image. Such happenings in this conference are not so important as the issues that the country is facing currently, which this conference will focus on. Only the Left movement can put up an organised struggle against the communal onslaught and economic policies, which have caused much suffering for the common people,” he said.
Mr. Rajendran said that Opposition unity at the national level was important in such a scenario. However, this has remained unsuccessful till now. The Left Democratic Front Government in Kerala has shown an alternative path to the BJP-led Union government, he said.
Mr. Rajendran said that the CPI had seen a considerable growth in its membership in recent years, with the numbers at 1.77 lakh currently.
Generational shift
Earlier, CPI leader and Food and Civil Supplies Minister G.R. Anil, who presided over the function, also spoke of unity within the party and on the need for infusing new blood into the leadership.
“The CPI is in its current position of strength due to the timely decisions taken by the party leadership. They have taken a conscious decision to bring in the new generation at all levels. There are hardly any party branches without new members. Those who have been Ministers in the past have made way for the new generation this time around. The people who have been wishing for some things to happen in the party, as per recent media reports, are bound to be disappointed when this conference ends,” he said.
Later, CPI National Control Commission Chairman Pannyan Raveendran raised the conference flag in the presence of senior leaders and party workers.
