Party faults him for ignoring obligation during elections
The CPI(M) State committee has publicly censured former Public Works Minister and party veteran G. Sudhakaran.
In a press release here on Saturday, the CPI(M) faulted Mr. Sudhakaran for not behaving as expected of a party State committee member during candidate selection and campaign for the 2021 Assembly election. It termed the reprimand as a corrective action.
Mr. Sudhakaran evaded the media as he stepped out of the AKG Centre. He made a beeline for Cliff House, where he spent an hour with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The CPI(M)’s decision to form a panel to probe the purported flaws in electioneering in the Alappuzha district had stoked speculation that Mr. Sudhakaran was the likely target of a hostile party inquiry.
The panel comprised CPI(M) Central committee member Elamaram Kareem and CPI(M) State secretariat member K.J. Thomas, both senior to Mr. Sudhakaran in the party hierarchy. The panel focussed on electioneering in the Ambalapuzha constituency. Rumours were rife that Mr. Sudhakaran had stayed off the campaign trail after the CPI(M) nominated A.H. Salam for the seat.
Moreover, the panel reportedly heard that Mr. Sudhakaran had allegedly done little to counter the campaign that certain fundamentalist outfits had preferred Mr. Salam over the veteran leader for the Ambalapuzha seat.
Some party members faulted the CPI(M) district leadership for keeping Mr. Sudhakaran out of the loop during campaigning. They claimed Mr. Sudhakaran had chaired over 18 campaign meetings, knocked on doors and successfully headed election fund collection. Notably, there was no erosion of CPI(M) votes in Ambalappuzha.
The party probe against Mr. Sudhakaran had raised eyebrows because the CPI(M) had not conducted similar inquiries in Kundara and Thripunithara, where party candidates had lost at the hustings.
Mr. Sudhakaran had in August penned a poem that had hinted at a parting of ways. It became a political talking point against the backdrop of the inquiry.
When asked whether the verse was a thinly veiled criticism of the party, Mr. Sudhakaran had said somewhat cryptically: “Readers interpret poems as they experience it individually.”
When journalists asked him about the party censure and his close-door meeting with Mr. Vijayan, Mr. Sudhakaran struck a similar sphinx-like enigmatic silence.
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