By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : Pinarayi Vijayan, the strongman of Kerala’s ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), appears to be gaining strength from the party’s organisational polls now under way.
As the four-stage elections enter the second phase, trends show the dice is heavily loaded in favour of Vijayan, the CPI-M state secretary and a bitter foe of Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan.
Area committee meetings are now being held all over Kerala. These would lead to district committee meetings and then eventually the state conference – held once in three years – at Kottayam in February.
In the run up to the polls, the Vijayan faction controlled the party in nine districts. The Achuthanandan group was on top in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Ernakulam, Pathanamthitta and Idukki.
Balloting in nearly 150 CPI-M area committees indicate that the Vijayan faction may wrest control of Thiruvananthapuram.
Achuthanandan is geared to give a tough fight only in his strongholds of Palakkad and Alapuzha districts.
Vijayan and Achuthanandan have been at loggerheads for a long time, forcing the party to sack both leaders from the politburo this year on grounds of indiscipline. They were later taken back.
But the Vijayan-Achuthanandan war still rages, affecting the CPI-M all across Kerala, one of the three strongholds of the party in the country.
Such has been the infighting that the politburo issued strict guidelines in October for the conduct of the organisational polls and gave itself sweeping powers to intervene at any stage.
Veteran party leader M.M. Lawerence said: “At certain places things went over board, but our party is capable of handling things. By the end of the Kottayam state conference in February, all the issues in the party would be settled.”