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Mass resignation ruffles CPI(M) feathers

By Our Staff Reporter

KOLLAM JUNE 6. While outwardly, the CPI(M) appears cool to the yesterday's development in which more than half the members from the party's Karunagapally area committee announced their resignation and joined the `revolutionary movement' launched by the trade union leader, V. B. Cheriyan, within, the exodus has badly rocked the party.

Though sweets were distributed by party activists at Karunagapally yesterday to celebrate the exit of the dissidents, for the party leadership, it is a bitter bill. The district-level leadership went into a marathon session today by convening the district secretariat and the district committee. The intention, it is understood, is to evolve strategies to contain the exodus trend.

The leadership is aware that the `Karunagapally syndrome' has caught the party at several other area committees in the district and these would include the Chavara and the Kundara area committees.

If emergency measures are not taken to defuse the dissident activities at such area committees through positive measures, then Karunagapally could be repeated at these areas too in the near future. It is understood that as part of the `positive measure' approach, the leadership strategy would be inclined towards a `consultation and conciliation' measure wherever possible.

General opinion has cropped up within the party that the attack on Mr. Cheriyan at Kadakkal on April 30 was a faux pas. That development had in fact only served to help him gain more mileage in the district.

Meanwhile, talking to presspersons today, the Karunagapally area committee secretary of the CPI(M), M. K. Bhaskaran, said the exodus of a few persons would not in any way affect the party. He said that it was on grounds of resorting to serious dissident activities that disciplinary action had been taken against some leaders under the area committee.

"The claim that the majority of the members from the area committee had joined the Cheriyan movement was not at all true. Only 198 of the 2,476 members have left the party," he said.

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