Thiruvananthapuram: The reception committee chairman Baby John will hoist the flag at the public meeting venue at Thrissur on Wednesday to mark the beginning of CPM state conference. The torch light rallies from different parts of the state will culminate at the venue on Wednesday evening. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan will light the conference lamp. CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury will formally inaugurate the CPM state conference. As many as 566 delegates and 16 observers representing all 14 districts will attend the four-day session.
The top brass of CPM including Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, S. Ramachandran Pillai, A K Padmanabhan and M A Baby will be present during the conference of Kerala unit which is also the biggest unit in the country. Veteran leader V.S. Achuthanandan will hoist the conference flag at the venue on Thursday. The venue is named after late V. V. Dakshinamoorthy. The state conference is taking place amid the raging controversy over the brutal killing of Youth Congress leader Shuhaib in Kannur.
While the CPM had initially distanced itself from the murder, the persons arrested by the police subsequently in connection with the ghastly incident clearly indicated the involvement of party workers, especially those have links with the district leadership. The state-wide protest campaign launched by the Congress against the gruesome killing will surely grab the attention of CPM national leadership during their stay in the state. Barring the embarrassment caused by the killing and the cheque fraud cases registered against Kodiyeri Balakrishnan’s sons, the party is in a much better health now. Unlike factional feuds which used to cast a shadow over state conferences in the past, this time around the CPM is a united house.
