CPI(M) sets up committee to probe factionalism in Kerala unit

Concerned over factionalism in its Kerala unit, CPI(M) has set up a group comprising its top leaders to look into it while making it clear that there was "no change" in the status of veteran leader V S Achuthanandan as the Leader of Opposition in the state assembly.
The party's Central Committee, which met here for two days, also approved disciplinary action taken by the state unit against four party members in Kerala, most of them close to Achuthanandan.
Asked about a demand by a section in the party about his expulsion from the LoP position, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said "there is no change in the status of the Leader of Opposition. ... We want the party to be strengthened."

After a two-day Central Committee meeting, the CPI(M) Politburo set up a six-member Commission to go into the organisational issues in Kerala. The members are Karat, Sitaram Yechury, S R Pillai, Nirupam Sen, B V Raghavulu and A K Padmanabhan.
Karat also charged the state's ruling UDF had developed rift within and was "failing to tackle urgent problems facing the people in Kerala. It is important at this juncture that the party provides a united leadership so that the party and the LDF can make significant advances."
The explusion of the four party activists in Kerala is seen as a bitter feud between Achuthanandan and the dominant faction led by state Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.

The CPI(M)'s state committee, dominated by Vijayan's supporters, had in December decided to expel from the party three of Achuthanandan's personal staff members, including his press secretary, on the ground that they had been leaking party information to the media. Achuthanandan had then objected to the decision and the matter was taken up by the Central Committee.