The simmering differences within the Nair Service Society (NSS) boiled over into a full blown fight on Friday when five members walked out of its Prathinidhi Sabha (Delegates Council), which met here in the morning ahead of an election to the board of directors of the community organisation.
The protest followed a decision by the organisation to exclude Kalanjoor Madhu, once a close confidant of NSS general Secretary G. Sukumaran Nair, on the expiry of his tenure.
“Mr. Madhu had to move out of the NSS as he continued to work against the organisation. He has extended support to those who were earlier expelled from the NSS for anti-organisation activities,” Mr. Nair told reporters at the NSS headquarters.
On the occasion, he also sought to dismiss the reports of a widening rift within organisation. “Mr. Madhu did not receive anyone’s support from the NSS delegates council, which comprises some 300 members and this itself suggests that the council holds full trust in the present leadership. That this same council has given me a fifth term in the chair of organisation’s general secretary further reinforces this notion,” he added.
Mr. Madhu, on the other hand, accused the present NSS leadership of indulging in nepotism and attempting to curtail voices of dissent from within.
“The present leadership has deviated from the values set by Mannath Padmanabhan. The leadership does not follow democracy in the organisation. It should desist from the attempts to label whoever voicing an independent opinion as the agent of a rebel group,” Mr. Madhu told reporters.
The sudden exit of Mr. Madhu from the community organisation, meanwhile, is widely regarded as the manifestation of a burgeoning rebel movements in some pockets of the organisation such as Vaikom, High Range and Neyyattinkara among others.
The rebels have already approached the High Court and National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) against the present leadership with charges of corruption and nepotism and the raging fight between the two groups have often spilled over to the social media as well.
Official sources pointed out that the NSS leadership had been wary of a perceived support of the CPI(M) to these rebel movements and firmly believed that Mr. Madhu, the elder brother of Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal, had acted as a bridge between the rebels and the party.
