People's Democracy

Kerala: CPI(M) State Conference Reaffirms Party’s Strength

K K Ragesh

HELD from February 6 to 10 at Thiruvananthapuram, the Kerala state conference of the CPI(M) culminated in a successful, massive rally in which more than two lakh people participated, with over 20,000 red volunteers parading as a part of the march. The state conference, being organised as a part of the 20th congress of the CPI(M), evaluated the political situation in the state, activities of the party, organisational initiatives, and effectively chalked out the future course of action.

Earlier, the city of Thiruvananthapuram had hosted the 13th party congress from December 27, 1988 to January 1, 1989. The CPI(M)’s special conference was also held in this very city from October 20 to 23, 2000.

The four day state conference established the political, ideological and organisational maturity, vigour and strength of the CPI(M) in the state. It collectively adopted the report, resolutions etc, and unanimously elected a new state committee, ignoring all speculations and malicious campaigns of the media syndicate. Contrary to the media propaganda, the report was adopted and all decisions were also taken unanimously. The massive rally and mass participation in all the conference related programmes were extremely amazing, with the state capital literally draped in red during these four days.

Hoisted at the public meeting’s venue in Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium, the red flag was brought from the Martyrs Column at Kayyur in Kasaragod district by a jatha led by the party’s Central Committee member E P Jayarajan. Similarly, the flagpole was brought from the Martyrs Column in Punnapra-Vayalar by another jatha led by CPI(M) Central Committee member M A Baby. The conference torch was brought from the memorial of the late Kattayikkonam V Sreedhar, by a jatha led by the party’s state committee member Anavur Nagappan. The organising committee chairman M Vijayakumar hoisted the red flag at E Balanandan Nagar, the public meeting’s venue in the stadium, on February 6.

CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat inaugurated the delegates session of the conference in Harkishan Singh Surjeet Nagar (AKG Hall, beside the AKG Centre) on  February 7. Prior to the inaugural session, Pinarayi Vijayan lit the torch while Central Committee member and opposition leader V S Achuthanandan hoisted the red flag to mark the proceedings of the conference, after the delegates and leaders paid floral tribute at the Martyr Column prepared near the University College. Delegates and leaders accompanied by the red volunteers paid floral tribute to martyrs who laid down their life for the cause of the oppressed. General secretary Prakash Karat, state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, Polit Bureau members S Ramachandran Pillai, K Varadarajan, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and  Central Committee m member V S Achuthanandan placed wreaths at the Martyrs Column.

Representing the 3,70,818 party members in the state, 556 delegates including the state committee members and observers attended the conference. While inaugurating the conference, Prakash Karat referred to the attacks on the Party over the display of Jesus Christ's image in a history exhibition and said that there was a conspiracy behind such a controversy. Terming the hullabaloo as motivated and unwarranted, Karat clarified that the CPI(M) does not believe in combating any religion or belief and that it in fact combats communalism and religious fundamentalism. Quoting Fidel Castro's famous statement that ‘there are 10,000 times more coincidences between Christianity and communism than between Christianity and capitalism, Prakash Karat said, “Our fight is against communalism and religious fundamentalism and we will say with confidence that there is no political force in this country which has been so consistent in the fight for secularism.”

Assessing the political situation, Prakash Karat reiterated that the Left parties had been ardently fighting against the neo-liberal policies and that it is the Left alone that can offer alternative to the ruthless neo-liberal policies. "The BJP is not different from the Congress. We saw its record when it was in power during the period of the NDA government; we saw how it pursued the same neo-liberal policies. We saw the BJP governments in Karnataka and the other states like Madhya Pradesh, which have become notorious for corruption, and have links with notorious people including the mining mafia. Thus the BJP cannot provide any alternative to the Congress today. Only the CPI(M) and other Left parties are consistent fighters against the neo-liberal policies," said Karat. Referring to the huge scams and the need for an effective Lokpal, he reaffirmed the need to fight corruption at its very source and said, “There are people who think that the Lokpal will end corruption. Of course, a strong Lokpal is necessary. But what is more important is to put an end to the neo-liberal policies." Karat further slammed the attempts of the UPA government and the UDF to discredit the CPI(M) and its leaders by bringing in false corruption charges.  The Congress led government had earlier as well tried to level false allegations against the party’s state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan in the SNC-Lavalin case and then against V S Achuthanandan on the land allotment issue. The CPI(M) will fight all such efforts to tarnish the image of the party and its leaders, he said. Karat also reminded the audience of the notorious record of the Congress party that has time and again been misusing the investigating agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation against its political opponents. The CBI was, as we know, used against the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and many other parties.   Karat then cautioned the Congress party, "If you think you can use the weapon of corruption against the CPI(M), you are living in a fantasy world." He pointed out that the CPI(M) has become a target of the reactionary forces because of its unrelenting resistance to the neo-liberal policies being pursued by the Congress and for its attempts to collude with US imperialism. It is an undeniable fact that only the CPI(M) and the Left can claim to have a corruption free record, Karat added.

After the inaugural session, CPI(M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan placed the organisational report. In the discussion, 54 delegates participated and then Prakash Karat and Pinarayi Vijayan replied to the discussion.

The conference unanimously adopted 30 resolutions. One of these resolutions called upon the people to support the February 28 all India strike and appealed to support the nurses’ strike in private hospitals. It also appealed to safeguard the achievements of the previous LDF government. The conference protested the inactiveness of the central and state governments in ensuring the safety of the people who reside close to the Mullaperiyar dam. It further exposed the UDF government’s corruption deals, registered strong protest against the moves to sabotage the general education, against the perilous policy shift in higher education and health, and to the moves impair the decentralisation system and the Kudumbashree self-help groups. Moves to withdraw the alternative policy in electricity sector and to weaken the PSUs in the state were also the objects of protest. The conference called upon the people of Kerala to resist the odious moves to damage the LDF period’s achievements. It demanded that the central and state governments must desist from inviting FDI in retail trade, reject the Vaidyanathan committee report that would impair the cooperative sector in the state, give up the anti-peasant policies that are leading to farmers’ suicide, reverse the policy to curb the PDS and rationing, and implement the rural employment scheme effectively.

The conference unanimously elected 84 members of the new state committee with inclusion of 12 new members (one post has been kept vacant) and a five-member control commission and delegates for the party congress to be held in Kozhikode. Subsequently, the newly elected state committee also unanimously elected the Pinaray Vijayan as the state secretary. Pinarayi Vijayan’s name for the post of the secretary was proposed by V S Achuthanandan and supported by T Sivadasa Menon.

The members of the new state committee are: V S Achuthanandan, Pinarayi Vijayan, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Paloli Mohammed Kutty, A Vijayaraghavan, M A Baby, P Karunakaran, Vaikom Viswan, P K Gurudasan, P K Sreemathy, E P Jayarajan, T M Thomas Isaac, M C Josephine, T Sivadasa Menon, V V Dakshinamoorthy, A K Balan, M V Govindan, Anathalavattom Anandan, K Kunhiraman, A K Narayanan, K P Satheesh Chandran, P Jayarajan, M V Jayarajan, K P Sahadevan, K K Ragesh, K K Shylaja Teacher, P A Mohammed, C K Saseendran, Elamaram Kareem, N K Radha, T P Ramakrishnan, P Sathi Devi, K Ummer Master, P K Sainaba, T K Hamsa, P Sreeramakrishnan, M Chandran, P Unni, C T Krishnan, Baby John, K Radhakrishnan, K Chandran Pillai, C M Dinesh Mani, K N Ravindranath, S Sharma, K M Sudhakaran, M M Lawrence, P Rajiv M M Mony, K K Jayachandran, K J Thomas, V R Bhaskaran, K Ananthagopan, R Unnikrishna Pillai, P K Chandranandan, G Sudhakaran, C K Sadasivan, C S Sujatha, M K Bhaskaran, K Rajagopal, P Rajendran, J Mercykutty Amma, K N Balagopal, B Raghavan, K Varadarajan, S Rajendran, M Vijayakumar, Pirappancode Murali, Anavur Nagappan, Kadakampally Surendran, T N Seema, C P Narayanan, T V Rajesh, James Mathew, A Pradeep Kumar, P P Vasudevan, C K Rajendran, A C Moideen, N R Balan, C N Mohanan, K P Mary, P K Biju, C B Chandrababu, and Koliyakkode Krishnan Nair.

Polit Bureau members Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat, S Ramachandran Pillai and K Varadarajan also attended the conference that concluded with a huge rally while the whole city reverberated with the revolutionary songs and slogans, bugle sound and drum beats.  

The huge rally commenced with red volunteers’ parades accompanied by mass processions. These started at five different centres culminated in a public meeting at E Balanandan Nagar in the Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium. After the red volunteers’ parade which took more than two hours to enter the stadium, general secretary Praksh Karat and state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan received the guard of honour atop an open jeep. Praksh Karat inaugurated the public meeting while Pinarayi Vijayan presided over. Polit Bureau members Brinda Karat, and Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and opposition leader V S Achuthanandan also spoke in the meeting. Organising committee’s general convener Kadakampalli Surendran delivered the welcome address.

The 20th state conference of the CPI(M), which concluded on February 10, was indisputably a milestone in the history of the party in Kerala. The progressive and democratic minded sections acknowledges the fact that it is the CPI(M) led Left and democratic forces that would brighten the future of the state of Kerala with their political, ideological and organisational intervention in the days to come. The systematic organization of the conference, amazing mass participation, fabulous campaign and propaganda all made the opponents unleash a smear campaign aided by a section of the media against the conference, but all such frustrated moves were wrecked and ridiculed by the people at large. Combating all the venomous propaganda of the adversaries of the Left, the 20th state conference of the CPI(M) successfully set the future course of action and marked the direction for future struggles, advancement and consolidation.