Concerned about the fact that factional rivalry in the state party unit has not come down even after the suspension of Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and State Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan from the polit bureau, senior CPM leaders are rushing to Thiruvananthapuram to curb the differences with an iron hand. Party General Secretary Prakash Karat and senior polit bureau members Sitaram Yechury, Umanath and S Ramachandran will  attend the state committee and state secretariat meet from August 9-12.

The party polit bureau, which took up the issue on Saturday, decided to send senior leaders to tame the defiant leaders.

They have decided upon this as the bickering between the loyalists of Achuthanandan and Vijayan has taken an ugly turn with members of the chief minister’s camp alleging that Kairali TV had aired the interview of Faris Abu Baker only to defame the senior Marxist leader.

Businessman Abu Baker had reportedly said that he had donated Rs 60 lakh to a football tournament in the memory of comrade E K Nayanar. The recent central committee meetings had endorsed the decision of party polit bureau to suspend both the leaders for indulging publicly in mudslinging against each other.

But as subsequent events showed, it has not been able to prevent the warring camps from continuing with their blame game against each other.