The Kerala unit of CPI(M) concluded it extended state committee meeting in Kozhikode with a limited but significant organisational rejig, three resolutions, a rare censure of State Secretary M.V. Govindan, and a tightly sequenced follow-up plan for its rectification drive.
The three-day meeting concluded on Tuesday with a public rally inaugurated by General Secretary M.A. Baby. The party announced decisions to strengthen itself organisationally, politically and ideologically after its heavy assembly election defeat, while reports indicated a formal censure against Govindan for multi-faceted troubles and failures party endured.
The meeting, held in the shadow of the Enforcement Directorate’s actions against Pinarayi Vijayan and others, adopted three resolutions. The first commits the party to a major mobilisation against both majority communalism and the minority communalism that, in the party’s view, sustains it. The second resolution targets the new UDF government’s “anti-people” positions. And, the third resolution gave party’s shield to Polit Bureau member and opposition leader Pinarayi Vijayan and state secretariat member and former minister P.A. Mohammed Riyas.
“The CPI(M) will strongly resist, both legally and politically, the politically motivated witch-hunt being carried out by the central government’s investigative agency, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), targeting CPI(M) Politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, state secretariat member Mohammed Riyas and their families,” said the resolution.
How the rectification drive will be followed up
Govindan told the concluding session that one of the major criticisms the party faces is not the absence of documents or decisions, but the failure to implement them effectively. The extended State Committee therefore built a time-bound, multi-tier follow-up architecture rather than leaving rectification as a one-time resolution.
The State Committee will prepare a specific agenda on each occasion to review implementation of the decisions taken in Kozhikode over a six-month period. Assessments will be conducted at all levels every three months. The first wave of that process begins immediately: extended district committee meetings will be held in all 14 districts in October. Besides district committee members, area committee secretaries and three additional comrades from each area committee will participate; at least one of those three must be a woman. Office-bearers of class and mass organisations—presidents, secretaries and treasurers—will also sit in these extended district committees. The concluding sessions of the district meetings are to be converted into major public programmes so that the line is not confined to closed rooms.
After the district meetings, reporting will move to the regional level. The explicit purpose is to turn the Kozhikode decisions into the common understanding of the party’s key cadres across Kerala rather than leaving them as a state-level document. The State Committee will then use the three-monthly assessments and the six-month review cycle to check whether the organisational, political and ideological correctives are actually being carried out on the ground.
Organisational changes
Two Central Committee members who sat in the State Secretariat—T.P. Ramakrishnan and T.M. Thomas Isaac—were relieved of secretariat duties and will assist the secretary from the State Centre. With Politburo permission, P. Jayarajan, M.B. Rajesh and V. Sivankutty were inducted into the Secretariat. John Brittas, a Central Committee invitee, will also function as part of the State Centre. Nine new leaders were made permanent invitees, including SFI All-India president Adarsh M. Saji, DYFI leaders Jaick C. Thomas and M. Vijin, SFI state office-bearers P.S. Sanjeev and M. Sivaprasad, N. Sukanya, O.S. Ambika, Zubaida Ishaq and poet Prabhavarma. The changes inject mass leaders from Kannur, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram and give greater space to a younger generation and women. No change was announced in the posts of State Secretary or Leader of the Opposition.
