With assembly elections scheduled for May 16, the CPI (M) in Kerala is caught in the middle of brewing unrest among its cadres with regard to candidate selection for the upcoming polls, a problem that had plagued the Congress for decades in the state.
The party state secretariat which met at the AKG Centre in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday reportedly expressed displeasure over the district committees’ re-sending of names of probable candidates already rejected by the state committee.
Though the proposed name of PK Gurudasan from Kollam was rejected by the party state committee, the district committee once again included his name in the revised list.
This did not go down well with the party state secretariat which had already finalized the names of six senior members of the secretariat who would contest the polls and hence did not favour Gurudasan’s inclusion.
In a similar fashion, the name of the party’s Ernakulam district secretary –P Rajeev- too was included against the wishes of the state leadership which prefers him to concentrate on strengthening the party rather than contest from the Tripunithura constituency in Ernakulam.
That the party chose a newcomer Rajani Parakat over the sitting MLA CK Sadasivan –a known VS Achuthanandan sympathizer- to contest from Kayamkulam too has ruffled many feathers.
Posters criticizing the party’s inclusion of numerous candidates such as Shiji Shivaji who is to contest from Kunnathnad in Ernakulam, actor KPAC Lalitha from Wadakanchery in Thrissur and the non-inclusion of Gurudasan for Kollam, Sadasivan for Kayamkulam, Rajeev for Tripunithura, M Hamsa for Ottapalam, CS Sujatha for Chengannur and Aiysha Potti for Kottarakara have come up in various places in the state.
In places like Aranmula, upto seven names are being floated as probable candidates making it even harder for the state leadership to arrive at a consensus.
The state leadership too is being targeted with posters terming veteran party leader G Sudhakaran as someone who would reportedly sell the party’s ideals for money further acerbates the on-ground unrest among the party cadres.
In this backdrop, state opposition leader VS Achuthanandan has apprised the CPI(M) central leadership over the prevailing uncertainty over selection of candidates especially in the central and southern districts of Ernakulam, Alapuzha, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram.
He exhorted them to consider the ‘winning’ quotient of a candidate so as to ensure that the party attains a minimum of 100 seats in the coming elections. The party is now expected to finalize its list of candidates by March 20 after few more rounds of discussions with its district committees in the state.