Thiruvananthapuram, April 4 The stage is all set in Kerala's Kannur the home turf of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for the conduct of the 23rd Party Congress of the CPI-M , an event that is held every three years, where the party puts forward its agenda and also elects a new leadership to chart its way forward.
The mega meeting will begin on Wednesday and end on Sunday. General Secretary Sitaram Yechury is sure to get the third and final term, but the focus will be on 76-year-old Pinarayi Vijayan. He is likely to be catapulted to a new level becoming the unquestionable and the last word in the party not just in Kerala, but nationally.
And how he has reached there, is the work that he put in when he became the state party secretary in 1998 after quitting as a cabinet minister in the E.K. Nayanar government. In 2015, he literally had the party firmly in his grip and all those leaders whom he felt would be a bother, were gradually booted out.
But his stock rose after taking over as the Chief Minister in 2016 which went further up after he led his party to a stunning victory in Assembly polls for a second term in April 2021, even after being besieged with numerous allegations.
Yechury at that time had said, "Have you in your lifetime seen such a thing happening, when a CPI-M government was returned to office in Kerala."
Yechuri's statement was very clear, that the party owes everything to Vijayan, as it has been wiped out in Bengal which it ruled for over three decades and is struggling in Tripura and had it not been a second term, here, the red party would have been in shambles.
A media critic on condition of anonymity said none has any doubt that today in the CPI-M it is Vijayan who decides everything and till now there has been not even a murmur against him.
"Of the more than 800 delegates who will be present at the Party Congress, more than half are from Kerala and hence, Vijayan will be calling the shots and all eyes are on the composition of the powerful central committee and the politburo of the party. Do not be surprised if there are going to be more women in the central committee and perhaps in the politburo too and the only question is how many would be there in these from Kerala and in all likelihood, it's here where Vijayan's word will be final," said the critic.
Vijayan has been stay put at Kannur since the past two days and ensuring that everything is in order for the party congress to be a grand success.
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