According to Deshabhimani daily, the Kerala CPI(M)'s mouthpiece, lakhs of people had participated in the rally held in Alappuzha on Monday at the conclusion of the party's 21st State conference even when they knew that nonagenarian leader VS Achuthanandan would not attend it and this proved that the communist movement was not dependent on any leader, however, great he or she was.
This is not entirely true. Firstly, "lakhs of people holding aloft the Red Flag" were simply not there at the rally. Even sources in the organising committee now admit that crowd there contained far less than a lakh people. Secondly, the fact is that lakhs of people were not there mainly because of the reports that Achuthanandan would not be attending the rally.
Thirdly, a good number of those who attended it had done so with the hope that he might reach the venue, though late. The crowd had thinned as the rally progressed. By the time it was over, only less than 10,000 people remained. The fact, as far as the Kerala CPI(M) is concerned, is that it does not have a single leader other than Achuthanandan who can really pull crowds.
Even active members of CPI(M) branch committees in Alappuzha district told The Pioneer that they had attended the rally only because there was a standing order from the party bosses to bring a minimum number of people to the rally, specifically to prove that it was not the presence of Achuthanandan which determined the success of the party's public events.
Achuthanandan, who had set in motion the State conference process by hoisting the Red Flag on February 20, walked out of the meet the very next day pained by the sustained attacks against him by the neoliberalist State leadership under then secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and his loyalists and the central leadership's act of permitting the outrage.
On the eve of the meet, a State secretariat resolution had termed him as a man with "anti-party mentality". As his absence at the meet became huge news in the media, general secretary Prakash Karat served an ultimatum on him saying that he should attend the conference or at least the rally on Monday. Achuthanandan chose to defy the ultimatum.
"When I left home, reached the EMS Stadium in Alappuzha and when the rally started, there was a feeling that the comrade in VS cannot stay away from such an event. That is why I went. By the time the public meeting started, it was certain that he wouldn't come. So I left early," said Sabu, a party sympathizer from Kanjikkuzhy, one of the VS strongholds in the district.
Of the less than 75,000 people who attended the rally, 25,000 were the Red Volunteers who had no choice but to be there. By the time the speeches of Karat and Pinarayi were over, the crowd had thinned considerably. People could be seen literally flowing out of the venue when Politbureau members S Ramachandran Pillai and Brinda Karat were speaking.
There were faint applauses when Pinarayi ridiculed Achuthanandan, one of the founder leaders of his party, by indirectly stating that he was in the habit of exaggerating his sacrifices. But those applauses were the forced cheers and had no comparison to the cheering of people when Achuthanandan would make his points in his characteristic style, CPI(M)-watchers say.