Sunday date for 200 CPM rebels In Thrissur

Thrissur: Citing lack of inner-party democracy, nearly 200 rebels and ousted members of the CPM at Valppad, Nattika and Thalikkulam will join the CPI at a convention to be held in the region on Sunday. CPI central secretariat member Pannyan Raveendran and the lone party MP in the Lok Sabha, C.N. Jayadevan, will attend the convention. A local committee secretary T.K. Kuttan, convener of the rebel group, said that for almost two years they had been taking up the issue of the ouster of several members from the party with top party leaders and committees, but in vain.

It is learnt that district secretary K. Radhakrishnan had deputed a district committee member two weeks ago to hold talks with the rebels. But they stood firm saying that it was too late to hold any conciliatory talks. Mr T.L. Santhosh, a popular CPM leader at Thalikkulam, had drifted from the party nearly half a decade ago citing similar reasons and joined the RMP.