Kerala CPM's factionalism and infighting spurs Congress & BJP to woo dissidents

Thiruvananthapuram: After the back to back setback in elections, infighting and factionalism in the CPM is coming out in the open and the Congress and the BJP are also making bids to woo dissidents from the CPM.

The ongoing regional meetings of the CPM regional committees as part of the upcoming state and national congress of the party is witnessing intense factionalism that is even spilling over to the streets, which has been quite uncommon in the CPM.

Serious allegations of party factions working against party candidate and former finance minister Thomas Isaac during the last Lok Sabha polls at Pathanamthitta and party cadres expressing serious differences over fielding politburo member A Vijayaraghavan at Palakkad Lok Sabha seat have come up.

While a CPM local leader from Alappuzha district, Bipin C Babu, joined the BJP the other day, the Congress and BJP seems to be wooing CPM senior leader from Alappuzha and former minister G Sudhakaran.

While AICC general secretary and Alappuzha MP K C Venugopal held a meeting with Sudhakaran the other day, BJP state vice president B Gopalakrishnan said that he had also met Sudhakaran at his residence and also added that Sudhakaran is a leader with good integrity and is even a half-BJP man by mind.

Sudhakaran, who often openly criticised the CPM leadership on various issues, was not even invited to the ongoing regional meeting of the party in the district.

All these developments have triggered speculations that Congress and BJP are trying to woo Sudhakaran.

Meanwhile, there are also reports that Kerala Congress (M) headed by Rajya Sabha MP Jose K Mani is also planning to leave the CPM-led Left Democratic Front and return to the Congress-led United Democratic Front.

KC(M) is reportedly unhappy over the mounting dues to beneficiaries of the state government's Karunya medical scheme, which was an initiative of party founder leader K M Mani, who is a former finance minister in the previous Congress government.

KC(M) that mostly represents the high-range farmers of central Kerala is also unhappy over lack of initiative by the state government to ensure price stabilisation of rubber.