Sudhakar Reddy gets one more term as CPI gen secy

KOLLAM: The 23rd party congress of the Communist Party of India (CPI) that concluded here on Sunday re-elected S Sudhakar Reddy as the party's general secretary. Though Reddy had expressed a desire to step down on health grounds, the delegates decided upon a second term for him mainly because of the difficulties foreseen in finding a consensus candidate to the post.
While there were rumours that at least two deputy general secretaries will be appointed to assist Reddy, such an appointment did not take place.The existing deputy general secretary Gurudas Das Gupta, who vacated the post, was made chairman of the party's programme committee.
The strength of the party's central secretariat (equivalent to the CPM politburo) was increased to 11 from nine and Kanam Rajendran and Binoy Viswom from Kerala have been accommodated in that body. Pannyan Raveendran, who was dropped from the central secretariat, will now head the 11-member control commission of the party. The congress also constituted a 126-member national council, including AIYF leader Kanhaiya Kumar.
Meanwhile, four members from the state have been dropped from the national council and five new faces were accommodated. Those dropped are C Divakaran, C N Chandran, Sathyan Mokeri and Kamala Sadanandan. The dropping of Divakaran and Mokeri is being seen as a strong move to check alleged factionalism cropping up in the party. Both are seen as strong supporters of K E Ismail, who poses a challenge to the state secretary Kanam Rajendran. But Ismail has been accommodated in the national council because of his minority status, sources said. Mokeri's removal has invited strong protests from delegates representing the Malabar areas. The new faces from Kerala are K P Rajendran, N Anirudhan, P Vasantham, N Rajan and E Chandrashekaran.
Divakaran reacted to his removal by stating that he has no godfathers in the party. He said he is neither heartbroken nor would have been excited had he been retained.
"It is not from the Indian President's post that I have been removed," Divakaran told media persons. Later, he abstained from the meeting of delegates from Kerala.
Not to mention Cong separately
The party congress (in its plans for new electoral equations to oust the BJP government) also decided not to separately mention the Congress party. Some delegates wanted the prospects of a new electoral alliance to be read as one with secular democratic forces, including the Congress. It was this suggestion that was dropped and decided that electoral alliances could be state-specific.