Kannur (Kerala), Jan 26 (IANS) Kerala’s ruling CPI-M on Monday expelled V. Kunjikrishnan, a senior member of its Kannur district committee, for allegedly betraying the party after he publicly revealed purported irregularities in the Dhanaraj Martyrs’ Fund.

The decision to remove him from primary membership was announced by district Secretary K.K. Ragesh at a press conference, where he accused Kunjikrishnan of turning into a “weapon in the hands of party enemies”.

Ragesh said the action was necessitated by Kunjikrishnan’s interview to Malayalam TV news channel Asianet News, owned by state BJP President Rajeev Chandrasekhar, in which he revived allegations that had already been examined and settled by the district committee as early as April 2022.

“By choosing to go public, especially with elections approaching, Kunjikrishnan had stabbed the party in the back,” Ragesh, a former Rajya Sabha member, alleged.

According to the CPI-M, Kunjikrishnan had deliberately attempted to malign Payyannur MLA and district secretariat member T.I. Madhusoodanan by linking him to alleged financial irregularities, including land transactions, despite Madhusoodanan not being an office-bearer of the Payyannur cooperative institution concerned.

The allegations, Ragesh said, were found to be baseless and motivated by personal animosity.

He cited the findings of an internal inquiry commission, which reportedly concluded that there was a conscious attempt to tarnish Madhusoodanan’s image — a conclusion that Kunjikrishnan had himself acknowledged earlier.

The party, Ragesh added, possessed “clear evidence” of information leakage and claimed that Kunjikrishnan had effectively admitted to leaking internal details.

“Is this conduct befitting someone who claims to stand by communist ideals?” he asked.

Addressing the controversy around receipt books linked to fund collection, Ragesh admitted that typographical errors were found in six receipt books and that there had been lapses in properly destroying them.

Some receipt books were also reported missing.

However, he maintained that the money collected through those receipts was not handled by Madhusoodanan.

He asserted that the funds were raised to assist families, build houses and manage legal cases, and that the party had not suffered any financial loss.

While acknowledging a four-year delay in presenting income-expenditure statements, he said disciplinary action had already been taken.

Details of fund expenditure, he said, would not be made public.

Kunjikrishnan, 74, has been associated with the CPI-M for over five decades.

He joined the party at 24 and rose through the ranks as branch Secretary and Payyannur area Secretary before becoming a district committee member.

He had earlier been removed from organisational responsibilities during disciplinary action linked to factionalism in Payyannur, later returning as a district committee invitee before regaining full membership at the last party conference.

Soon after hearing the news of his expulsion, Kunjikrishnan said he heard what Ragesh said and felt there was nothing new in his statement.

“Some things, when I heard, I felt like laughing. He said it was a conspiracy, so I went to Asianet. I would have given my interview to Kairali (the CPI-M-backed TV channel), but they would not have aired it. Another reason why I gave (the interview) to Asianet was that when this first surfaced, Madhusoodhanan then filed a defamation notice. I would have said the same thing to any TV channel, and the party would have done the same. I stand by what I have exposed,” Kunjikrishnan said.

Kunjikrishnan has maintained that he went public only after repeated internal appeals failed to elicit action, describing his expulsion as expected. He also ruled out joining any other political party.

–IANS

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