Former VS aide wishes to return to CPI(M)

Amidst indications that he will be taken back into the Communist Marxist Party of India (Marxist), A. Suresh, former personal assistant and aide to Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan, has said he will soon approach the party State leadership seeking withdrawal of his dismissal.

Mr. Suresh was expelled from the party on May 14, 2013, along with Mr. Achuthanandan’s press secretary K.Balakrishnan and Additional Private Secretary V.K. Sasidharan on the charge of leaking party secrets to the bourgeois media.

The move was widely perceived as an attempt to clip the wings of Mr. Achuthanandan as part of the ongoing factional feud in the State unit of the party.

After his expulsion, Mr. Suresh went to Dubai and was working there with a private firm.

On vacation in Palakkad, Mr. Suresh told The Hindu that he would soon give an appeal to the State committee to revoke the dismissal. Claiming he neither acted against the party nor breached its discipline, Mr. Suresh said he was innocent in the case of leaking party secrets.

He said he met CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechuri and told him about his desire to return to the party. He said he was expecting a favourable decision from State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.

He said the then party State secretary and Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan was never against him. “He was the first leader to reach my house on hearing the demise of my father,” Mr. Suresh said.

He said only the CPI(M) could protect Kerala’s democratic and secular traditions in the face of challenges from the Sangh Parivar.

He joined Mr. Achuthanandan’s personal staff in 2002 while working as the Kalamandapam branch secretary of the party. He was a leader of the SFI then.