RSP dissidents planning parallel party

Divakaran told The Indian Express that the charge of `ministerial ambition’ levelled by the official faction was aimed at discrediting their movement. They had not demanded the removal of Irrigation Minister V P Ramakrishna Pillai from the Cabinet, he said, adding that he would dismiss with contempt any move to lure him back to the fold with offers of a Cabinet berth.

At the same time, Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan is expected to meet both the leaders tomorrow in an effort to bring about a compromise between the feuding factions and prevent a crisis for the Left Democratic Front.

Meanwhile, the official faction continued with its counter-offensive. State secretariat member P C John presided over a meeting of the Thiruvananthapuram district committee which elected Ambalathara Sreedharan Nair as the new district secretary. It suspended dissident G N Potti and sought action against K P Sankaradas.

ENS reports from Alappuzha: Dissident RSP leader A V Thamarakshan today warned the official group that his faction would capture the party’s State committee offices in Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam if the official group made any attempt to evacuate the dissidents from the offices being controlled by them.

Addressing a press conference here, Thamarakshan said if such a situation arose, his group would achieve its goal.

Thamarakshan said he did not get any official intimation from the party regarding his expulsion and he got to know of it from media reports.

He hoped the control committee of the party would quash the decision of the State committee, expelling him from the party. His group would approach the National Control Commission seeking dissolution of the State committee.

To a question, he said the crisis in the RSP could not be resolved by returning the ministerial berth to Baby John. “It is a dispute over some basic ideological issues and individuals have nothing to do with it.”

Thamarakshan said the district committee of the party, which met today, suspended six district official group leaders from membership of the party for attending an illegally-convened district committee meeting of the UTUC, the trade union wing of the party.

Of the total 30 district committee members, 16 were at the meeting. The suspended leaders are: V Mohandas, N Chandrasekharan Nair, P D Karthikeyan, K Ramachandran, M R Purushothaman and K Vidyadharan.

Thamarakshan said his group would organise a public meeting in the town on April 17 to prove its strength in the district. It would be inaugurated by Baby John and would be addressed by Babu Divakaran, K C Vamadevan and T M Prabha. He said over 5,000 party workers would attend the function.

Meanwhile, the district committee members, supporting the official group, today elected K Sankaran Nair as the new district secretary of the party.

According to them, the new secretary was elected in the district as Thamarakshan, who was the secretary so far, had been expelled from the party by the State committee.

They claimed that of the 29 district committee members (though the committee strength is 30, they argue that Thamarakshan cannot be included as he has been expelled), 16 were present at the meeting.

The meeting also expelled K Rasheed, district president of RYF, the party’s youth wing, and secretary C S Vinod from the party as complaints of anti-party activities against them were found to be true.