Relief as disgruntled ex-MLA sticks to party

A DAY after speculation surfaced that three-time former Kerala CPI-M legislator S. Rajendran might join the BJP, things appeared to have cooled down on Thursday with the Left leader confirming with top party bosses that he will not do anything that might put his party in duress, report online news sites quoting IANS.

The tongues started to wag that he might leave after he was spotted at the Delhi residence of senior party leader Prakash Javadekar in the national capital on Wednesday.

Rajendran, accompanied by some leaders from Tamil Nadu, called on Javadekar, who is the BJP state charge also.

“The meeting was nothing political and I will continue with the CPI-M,” said Rajendran on Thursday at his residence in Munnar in Idukki district.

Reliable sources pointed out that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan spoke to him and he assured him he would not do anything that would put the party in duress with the Lok Sabha polls around the corner.

Soon after Vijayan spoke, CPI-M state secretary M.V. Govindan had a conference call with Rajendran with Idukki district party secretary Vargheese also online.

But Rajendran is understood to have informed the party that he might not be very active in the election campaign.

Rajendran had been one of the tallest CPI-M leaders in the Idukki district, where the backbone of the CPI-M is the large number of workers in the plantation sector. He had represented the Devikulam Assembly constituency for three terms since 2006 and was deeply upset when the party rejected his request for a ticket in the 2021 Assembly polls.

Following this, Rajendran was further peeved after his party ordered a probe against him and a two-member committee found him guilty of gross indiscipline and recommended that he be stripped of his party membership for a year.