Thiruvananthapuram: While the CPM has started damage control exercise following allegations that party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had boarded a vehicle belonging to an alleged gold smuggler during jana jagratha yatra at Koduvally, many in the organisation believe that there was clear lack of watchfulness on the part of local leadership. The local leadership had arranged the luxurious open vehicle for Kodiyeri to greet the people who had gathered there in large numbers. The owner of the vehicle is an accused in an alleged gold the smuggling case.
A section of top leaders of the party admitted that the local leaders who are the main organisers of such public receptions, should have been more vigilant. One cannot expect the state leaders to be aware of the antecedents of people extending support to party programmes, they said. The leaders said what happened in Koduvally should have been avoided considering the importance of Jana jagratha yatra. As the present campaign is to counter the BJP-RSS janaraksha yatra which had imported party president Amit Shah, 16 union ministers and four chief ministers besides attracting national media attention, they say such incidents would only end up in diverting the real issues.
There have been complaints of party members and leaders especially at the local level of setting up links with real estate developers, contractors and antisocial elements. It is in this backdrop that the 2015 Kolkata plenum which adopted the rectification document, had given a call to the party workers to eschew all un-communist virtues, links with real estate promoters, extravagant life style and malpractices alien to norms of being a communist. Even at the state plenum held in Palakkad in 2013, the party had discussed 150-page document and came out with clear do’s and dont’s for members.
