Balakrishnan re-elected CPI(M) State secretary

Party to form strategy to prevent RSS from using temples

K. Balakrishnan, who was re-elected CPI(M) State secretary, addressing the media in Madurai on Friday.

K. Balakrishnan has been re-elected the State secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for the second consecutive term.

He was elected at the party's 23rd State conference that concluded here on Friday.

The 70-year-old, who was the first State president of the Students' Federation of India, has also served as a State/district-level functionary of the Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam and the Cuddalore district secretary of the party. He was elected State secretary first in 2018. He was jailed several times for having participated in various protests.

A 15-member State executive committee and an 80-member State committee were elected at the conference.

The meeting, in which over 500 representatives from across Tamil Nadu took part, discussed various issues faced by the people of the State and passed over 60 resolutions. The party’s national leaders, Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat, were among those who addressed the participants.

Addressing the media, Mr. Balakrishnan said the party had resolved to assume a leading role in taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar, and prevent them from setting foot in Tamil Nadu.

The party also discussed how to counter the dominance of the Sangh Parivar in temples.

"We will make all-out efforts to prevent the RSS from using the temples," Mr. Balakrishnan said.

Based on a strategy formulated by the State committee, the party would face the RSS at all platforms, including politics, culture and tradition. "We are not going to perform puja and abhishekam in temples. We will help our supporters get into the administration of temples and conduct temple functions through them, so that the RSS would not be able to get into temples for carrying out religious campaigns," Mr. Balakrishnan said.

He clarified that the CPI(M) was not going to participate in temple festivals, and would only prevent the RSS from using temples as a platform to further its political interests.

Honour killings

A special legislation against honour killings should be enacted in the ensuing Assembly session, the party demanded.

It said it would continue its struggle to redress the livelihood issues of the common man, like unemployment, price rice, employment of people on contract and the sick status of small-scale industries.

The party would conduct a State-wide agitation against the rising fuel price and toll rates on April 4.