A.K. Balan, chairman of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) State plenum organising committee and party State secretariat member, has said that the plenum being held here from November 27 to 29 will help end “the schism in the party that affected its unity and growth in Kerala for the past many years.”
Talking to The Hindu here on Monday, Mr. Balan said, “The plenum is to solve the organisational problems faced by the party and to fine-tune it to bring discipline so that it can emerge as the major political force that could unify all the Communist and Left masses in Kerala.”
“Factionalism that had immobilised the party to some extent came in the way of it becoming a rallying point of the poor sections of society and the minorities who faced great threat from communal forces of late. The party State leadership understood this organisational weakness and decided to take on it and, for the past year and a half, efforts had been made to end factionalism and bring unity in the party. This has brought good results and the plenum is a culmination of it,” he said.
Corrective actions
However, Mr. Balan said, there were some mistakes on the part of the party in its attitude to some people who took a divergent view on certain issues.
This led to a situation in which some sections left the party and even formed small Communist groups. The party corrected the mistakes and brought them back to its fold, as at Mundur and Shoranur in Palakkad. So, there were corrections of some of the subjective actions on the part of the party leadership too, he said.
“In Onchiyam also we wanted to bring back the group led by the late T.P. Chandrasekharan. But his murder and the issues that followed defeated the party’s efforts,” Mr. Balan said.
“The party leadership did not know about the actions of some of the local party activists on Chandrasekharan murder. We had disowned those involved in this crime and promised to take action against those found guilty. But the supporters of Chandrasekharan and his wife, Rema, were not convinced — maybe because of the mental agony they faced. But we are confident that she and other Communists will finally come back to the party and will not become a tool in the hands of anti-Communist and anti-Left forces. It may take some more time for the party to get them convinced of its stand on T.P. Chandrasekharan," he said.
Ties with CPI
Mr. Balan said the CPI(M) wanted to have close relations with all Left and progressive forces.
The joint work with the Communist Party of India helped to reduce many political and ideological differences between the two parties.
The strengthening of the CPI(M) in Kerala would also help the minorities galvanise to the Left.
Already there were positive moves from the Kerala Congress(M) and the Indian Union Muslim League on the secular stand taken by the Left Democratic Front on many issues, he said. CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, after being discharged from the SNC-Lavalin case, found more acceptance among the people, he said.
The plenum will conclude on November 29 with a public rally of more than two lakh people at Stadium Ground (AKG Nagar).
