VS too led politics of containment: Ex-loyalist

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: While the CPM in the state is facing a political storm unleashed by party veteran and Opposition Leader V S Achuthanandan over the gruesome murder of RMP leader T P Chandrasekharan, several persons are expressing doubts over the genuineness of VS’s concern over the murder.  Those who fell out of favour with VS during his tenure as state secretary are of the view that he had also been equally ruthless in containing even the frailest voices of dissent. In the process, a large number of workers as well as leaders had either been forced to quit or expelled from the party. “We were expelled for presenting an alternative document (badal rekha) in the party conference. It was with the presentation of the alternative document by M V Raghavan in the conference during 1986 at Ernakulam that VS turned against us. We had the permission of the Central Committee and Politburo to present the document.  Fifteen leaders, including E K Nayanar and T Sivadasa Menon, were part of the line adopted by MVR. But Nayanar ditched us,” said Patyam Rajan, acting state general secretary of the CMP.  “Two of our comrades were murdered following the expulsion of MVR from the party. Many including MVR had to face a series of attacks.  VS had justified the murders and attacks on our comrades,” he said. CMP state secretary K R Aravindakshan told “Express” that VS had never been regretful about  the attacks.  Compared to the breach of discipline by VS, no party leader who came out or was expelled from the party to form CMP had done anything seriously affecting the party discipline.  Many of the leaders who had been part of the scheme of things immediately parted ways with MVR when the VS-led official faction opposed our line.  “They (CPM workers) murdered our two comrades, Venugopalan Nair of Pallikkara in Kasargod and Chithrappuzha Vijayan of Ernakulam. I was beaten up by the CPM goons. Bombs were hurled at MVR twice by the CPM workers,” he said.  Chandran, one of the personal assistants of none other than EMS Namboodripad, was expelled from the party for taking some stencil copies of the alternative document at the AKG Centre. Meanwhile, one of the close associates of VS and the person who had been instrumental in building up the public image of VS in the last one-and-a-half decades through perfect media management, who does not want to be named, said that VS was following the politics of ‘containment.’  If VS’s concern on the murder of T P Chandrasekharan is genuine, he should have condemned the murder of Shukoor of Thalipparambu by CPM workers earlier, for allegedly attacking the car of P Jayarajan and T V Rajesh MLA, he said.  Now VS is trying to check the outflow of workers to the benefit of the official leadership. He had resorted to the same tactics in 2011 to benefit the party in the Assembly elections. He alleged that a few apolitical cronies surrounding VS were advising him.