Chaos rules at meet

State CPM secretary Pinarayi Vijayan terminated the rain-lashed valedictory session of the CPM state conference midway, after a huge crowd of party workers holding posters of Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan and chanting slogans supporting him led to unseemly scenes.

Scores of lathi-wielding red volunteers of the party had to beat up and chase away irate comrades from the venue after an angry Vijayan cut short the event and slammed them for their behaviour. Soon after general secretary Prakash Karat and Vijayan himself had addressed them, and VS took the mike, the large CPM crowd began swaying and dancing to pro-VS slogans almost drowning his words. This soon led to some altercations among sections of the audience and red volunteers rushed to make a human wall on either side of VS as he continued his speech.

An enraged Vijayan stomped to the mike and blasted the cadres for their 8220;anti-Communist behaviour8221; and asked the burly red volunteers at hand to go out and set things right. Vijayan also went on to shout through the mike that the drunk among the audience had better keep the booze within themselves, and shouted that someone had thrown a bottle on to the stage itself.