Cong leaders in Kerala to skip CPI(M) seminar

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After a strong warning from the party state unit, Congress high command on Monday asked senior party leaders Shashi Tharoor and K V Thomas not to attend the seminar conducted in connection with the 23rd CPI(M) party congress in Kannur (north Kerala) next month

After a strong warning from the party state unit, Congress high command on Monday asked senior party leaders Shashi Tharoor and K V Thomas not to attend the seminar conducted in connection with the 23rd CPI(M) party congress in Kannur (north Kerala) next month.

“A group of MPs from the state met party president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi and asked her to talk to the senior leaders in view of the ongoing agitation against the high-speed rail project, K Rail,” said a senior leader.

Later, she asked the senior leaders to go by the directive of the state unit and advised them to not attend the seminar and respect the party initiative, he said. Following this, KV Thomas said, “I will go by what the party president says.”

Tharoor also said he will go by the directive of the AICC president but expressed regrets over whipping up “a needless controversy”. “I respect the view of the AICC president and conveyed to the organisers my inability to participate. I regret that some preferred the unseemly public airing of internal differences, thereby creating a needless controversy in a matter in which AICC’s view was binding. I hope wisdom will prevail in future,” he said in a letter which was released to the media later. He has also cited reasons for welcoming the invitation initially. He said he was invited to a national seminar in connection with “Centre-state relations” in which there is no difference of opinion between two parties.

Last week, the CPI(M) had invited senior leaders to different seminars. While Tharoor was invited for a seminar on ‘Centre-state relations’, Thomas was invited for the topic ‘secularism and challenges’. Later, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief K Sudhakaran had asked all party leaders to not attend it and warned of action if they flout it. He said a ban was imposed after realising sentiments of the people.

Criticising the move, the CPI(M) said that the Congress was playing into the hands of BJP.

“It seems the Congress is treading a parochial trajectory which means they are playing into the hands of the BJP. Now, the party has to decide whether it wants to support the BJP or the CPI(M) initiatives to have an anti-BJP front in national politics,” said party Rajya Sabha member John Brittas. Earlier, party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had also slammed the KPCC chief’s warning.


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