By IANS
Coimbatore : E.M.S. Namboodiripad may have been a legendary leader for the communists. But his daughter, someone who has been a Marxist for more than three decades, is just a volunteer at the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)’s 19th party congress here.
Although many major personalities were roaming in and around the SRN Auditorium, where 722 delegates were deliberating on the CPI-M’s policies and future strategies, ordinary workers were more keen to be photographed with E.M.Radha, the third daughter of the veteran Marxist and former Kerala chief minister.
Radha, 50, has been in the party since her student days. After beginning as a communist in the students’ politics, Radha became a fulltime party member in 1977.
After a short stint in Chinta, the CPI-M’s Malayalam weekly, Radha joined the party’s Malayalam daily newspaper Desabhimani 20 years ago.
“I have been a volunteer for the party congresses since 1977,” a smiling Radha told IANS as she posed with a group of women delegates for a photograph.
Currently working as an assistant manager in Desabhimani’s Thiruvananthapuram office, Radha is married to C.K. Guptan, head of Kerala’s Devaswam Board. Their 17-year-old son is studying in Thiruvananthapuram.
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Comrade twins!
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Brinda Karat had an unusual task Wednesday at the venue of the party Congress. Local communist leader N. Ramamurthy wanted the firebrand leader to name his twin daughters.
Excited over the honour, Karat immediately obliged. She named the 22-day-old girls as Veerangana and Vijayeta. Party leaders from Tamil Nadu who were present at the occasion recollected that even the twins’ father was similarly named at a party congress held in the state. It was P. Ramamurthy who had named the twins’ father, N. Ramamurthy.