By IANS
Kottayam (Kerala): The Kerala unit of the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) has much reason to cheer at the ongoing state party conference – it has added 20,339 new members in the last three years.
A substantial number of new members is from the Christian community, Vaikom Viswam, convenor of the 2008 state party conference, told reporters here Tuesday.
The total membership of the party in Kerala in 2004, when the last conference was held in Malappuram, was 316,305.
“Our party membership has gone up and of the total membership, 19.79 percent of the members belong to the minority community. And maximum increase has been seen from the Christian community.” he said.
The Scheduled Tribes make up 0.9 percent of the total membership, Viswam said at the conference, which began Monday.
He said there was an increase of two million members in all the feeder organisations of the party as compared to the strength at the time of the earlier conference. The CPI-M holds its state conference once every three years.
“The issue of factionalism in the party that occurred during the Malappuram conference has been solved by the intervention of the party leadership at the state and central levels. Today we are more united,” Viswam claimed.
He also denied reports that the party and the government headed by V.S. Achuthanandan were on a collision course.
“A section of the media and vested interests are behind this and everything is fine in our party. The government is running smoothly and has tackled issues of the people in the right manner,” he asserted.
He said elections to the state committee, delegates to the party congress to be held in March at Coimbatore and also to the Control Commission would take place Thursday.