Yechury comes under fire at party meet in Kerala

T HI RUVANANTHAPURAM: Bringing the rift in the CPM into the open, some party leaders from Kerala slammed General Secretary Sitaram Yechury at a meet here on Sunday, a day after he confirmed that a complaint has been received against State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan’s son for alleged fraud.

Yechury on Saturday revealed that the party received a complaint against Balakrishnan’s elder son Binoy Balakrishnan about an alleged Rs 13 crore fraud committed in Dubai.

In wake of this, many state leaders attacked Yechury in their speeches at the conference, in which both Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Balakrishnan took part, with a few even accusing him of being disgruntled for not getting a Rajya Sabha renomination.

While the Congress was willing to support the candidature of Yechury from West Bengal to the Rajya Sabha, his Communist Party of India-Marxist was not in favour of it and in the bargain, it lost a seat in the Upper House.

With Sunday’s attack, the interparty rift has come out in the open.

Cracks started appearing in the party after Yechury took a stand favouring former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan.

This difference of opinion deepened when the entire Kerala unit of the party early this month voted, at the Central Committee meeting in Kolkata, against Yechury’s stand that the CPM should tie up with the Congress to fight the common enemy - the BJP.

A few days after Yechury’s draft resolution was voted out, came a news report alleging that Balakrishnan junior had duped a firm. A threepage letter — dated January 5, from the Dubai company sponser H I A Al Marzooqi — states that legal procedures have been started against Binoy for the fraud.

Sunday’s developments in the CPM come ahead of the state party conference to be held in Thrissur later this month where those who will attend the upcoming party Congress would be selected and it seems certain that the delegates from the state will not be supporters of Yechury or his stand.