A week after he boycotted the rally that marked the conclusion of the 21st State conference of the Kerala CPI(M) despite a party ultimatum, nonagenarian Marxist leader VS Achuthanandan on Monday skipped the first meeting of the party's reconstituted State committee, though the leadership had asked him to attend it. Achuthanandan, also Opposition leader in the State Assembly, boycotted the State committee meeting as per his decision not to attend any party meeting as long as a resolution passed by the party's State secretariat on February 19 terming him as 'a person with anti-party mentality" remained effective.
Achuthanandan is not a member of the reconstituted State committee. This is the first time since its formation in 1964, the CPI(M) has constituted a State committee in Kerala in which Achuthanandan, who has given 77 years of his life to communist movement, is not a member. A berth in the 88-member forum has been kept vacant probably to accommodate him later. Though he is not a member of the State committee, Achuthanandan, the senior-most party leader in the country, can take part in the meetings of the forum as a member of the central committee of the party. Also, the State leadership had specifically asked him to attend the meeting but he rejected that directive.
Achuthanandan, the only surviving member of the 32-man squad that had walked out of the national council of the CPI in 1964 to found the CPI(M), hopes that the party politburo will at its meeting on March 20 discuss the issues he had raised through an "alternative document" and freeze the State secretariat's resolution which termed him as a person with anti-party mentality. The agenda of the two-day State committee meeting is discussion of the draft political resolution for the 21st party congress to be held next month. It will also discuss the strategy to be adopted during the Budget session of the State Assembly beginning on March 6. The 2015-16 Budget is to be presented on March 13.
The defiant attitude adopted by Achuthanandan, Opposition leader in the State Assembly, is certain to cause discomforts to the CPI(M) and the lDF it leads during the Budget session particularly in the context of the statements of some senior leaders that it is inappropriate for him to continue as Opposition leader as he has ceased to be a member of the party's State committee.
Achuthanandan, leader of the now-weakened traditionalist faction in the Kerala CPI(M), had walked out of the four-day State conference on its second day pained by and protesting against the sustained attacks against him by delegates to the meet belonging to the camp of then State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, his Enemy No 1 in the party.
On the eve of the conference, Pinarayi had called a special Press conference to announce that the State secretariat had passed a resolution terming Achuthanandan as a person with anti-party mentality. In the 683-page organizational report which Pinarayi presented to the conference, 42 pages had been devoted to criticisms against Achuthanandan.
The nonagenarian leader, who had formally opened the State conference by hoisting the Red Flag, was also pained by the refusal of the central leadership under general secretary Prakash Karat to freeze the State secretariat resolution or to intervene when delegate after delegate attacked him. Karat had served an ultimatum on Achuthanandan asking him to attend the February 23 rally marking the conclusion of the conference. However, he rejected it by explaining that it would be improper for him to attend it when the resolution terming him as an anti-party person remained in force.