Once a poster-boy, now a rebel within

Courting controversies and facing disciplinary action for speaking against the party line has come to be associated with CPIM MP A P Abdullakutty...

Courting controversies and facing disciplinary action for speaking against the party line has come to be associated with CPIM MP A P Abdullakutty, who represents the communist citadel of Kannur in north Kerala.

Abdullakutty8217;s recent call to end the recurring malady of hartals in the state has left the CPIM red-faced and the party has promptly decided to censure him for coming out against hartals, which the party organises as a means to protest.

While attending a college programme in Kannur in February this year, Abdullakutty made a candid observation that hartals have taken a heavy toll on Kerala8217;s development. 8220;It8217;s high time political parties stopped organising hartals. Political fronts 8212; the CPIM-led Left coalition and the Congress-led United Democratic Front 8212; should sit together to put an end to this means of agitation,8221; he had said.

Trouble began for Abdullakutty at the venue of the programme itself. A local leader of the party, who was also attending the event, pulled up the MP. The party8217;s Kannur district committee also decided to censure him. The committee observed that Abdullakutty8217;s comment was untimely and tarnished the image of the working class.

Abdullakutty, a loyalist of V S Achuthanandan, had several times landed in trouble for straying away from the party line. Recently, he performed pre-Haj Umra in Mecca, ruffling the party leaders in the rival camp, led by party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. However, the controversy did not last for long after the party realised that its cupboard was stacked with skeletons of religious activities performed by several senior Left leaders.

Another controversy that put Abdullakutty in the dock was allegations over his business dealings. He was charged with running a firm on partnership, without the consent of the party.

In fact, the 41-year-old leader has never been in the good books of the CPIM leaders in Kannur and remains a mere member of the party8217;s area committee, despite being an MP since 1999.

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In the general election held in 1999, Abdullakutty, then a local CPIM man, was fielded against Congress stalwart and ex-Union minister Mullappally Ramachandran, mainly to wean away Muslim votes from the Congress camp. The trick worked; he toppled Mullappally. In the 2004 election, too, he won from the same seat. But in all probability, he is unlikely to get a third chance to contest.

Abdullakutty, who had been the state president of CPIM8217;s student outfit, SFI, from 1997 to 2000, never went up on the CPIM organisational ladder. During the district conference in 2005, he was relegated to a local committee from area committee, again as a disciplinary action. Later, he was brought back to the area committee at Mayyil.