CPI (M) bid to mollify party workers

In a move to salvage the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s hold on Keezhattur, a party stronghold here, leaders here have begun an initiative to mollify party workers expelled from the party for being involved in the stir by the ‘Vayalkilikal’ against the proposed National Highway bypass near Taliparamba.

The efforts of the CPI(M) leadership to tone down its earlier strident position against the Vayalkilikal group, which included the expelled party workers and supporters, have been initiated under the leadership of the party district secretary P. Jayarajan.

Mr. Jayarajan and local leaders of the party visited the houses of some of the expelled party workers on Wednesday in a bid to pacify the estranged party workers who are supporting the stir against the bypass. The CPI(M)’s latest initiative is seen as a gesture to avert any build-up of anti-CPI(M) sentiments in the pocket borough of the party. The agitation of the Vayalkilikal has already put the CPI(M) on the back foot, as the stir mobilised the support of the party’s rivals, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In his Facebook post on Wednesday, Mr. Jayarajan said that though the agitation against the government procedure to take over the land for the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for the proposed bypass was not acceptable to the party, the CPI(M) didn’t believe that all those agitating against the bypass were anti-party.

He, however, said that it became clearer that some extremist forces provided the ideological and practical leadership to the agitation. Such forces were behind the attempts to take the agitation to a new level, Mr. Jayarajan said.

While efforts should be made to isolate such forces, there were attempts in the social media to portray people who supported the agitation as the party’s political rivals, Mr. Jayarajan said.

“As a sympathiser of the CPI(M), I see this gesture from the party including visit of party leaders to the houses of some of the expelled workers as a positive move if the party’s intention is positive,” Vayalakilikal leader Suresh Keezhattur told The Hindu when contacted.

Those workers told the CPI(M) leadership that though they had nothing against the CPI(M) they would continue to support the agitation for protecting the paddy fields, he said.