Thiruvananthapuram: Injecting fresh blood into the party is an old adage of CPIM. Easier said than done, with the party never fully opening its upper doors for the youngsters.
This time round, the party is all set for a generational shift by bringing to the top notch more youngsters, giving walking papers to the old generation—except Chief Minister PInarayi VIjayan who is above 57 years old.
Along this line of attitude, CPIM's agile face P.A Mohammed Riyas, son-in-law of CM, and state Tourism Minister, entered the state secretariat.
Incumbent state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan will continue in the post for another three more years—this will be his last as per the party rules.
The re-jig was decided by the party that all those leaders aged 75 and above will not be able to sit in party committee's, and hence 13 of its veteran leaders have been dropped from the 88-member state committee. The most surprising choice was Kannur former strongman P.Sasi, who a decade back was dropped following a scandal where he misbehaved with the daughter of a CPI-M leader, was brought back to the state committee, IANS reported.
Sasi was was dropped after the complaint against him was found to be true.
Veterans dropped from the state committee include G.Sudhakaran from Alappuzha. Ahead of the four-day 23rd party conference, he gave a letter to both Vijayan and Balakrishnan about his not being keen for the committee membership. Others to be dropped include M.M. Mani, Vaikom Viswan, A.Anandan, P.Karunakaran.
The state secretariat will have fresh faces like A.A. Rahim, Chintha Jerome and 33-year-old V.P. Sanu, alongside 42-year-old M. Swaraj, one-time legislator, who lost the 2021 Assembly polls, is in the state secretariat.
The only person younger than him to have been become a member of the secretariat was Pinarayi Vijayan, who was inducted in the secretariat when he was just 41 year old, IANS reports.
Meanwhile two State Minister's V.N. Vasavan and Saji Cherian have also been drafted into the secretariat.
The 17-member Secretariat has the political secretary to Vijayan- Puthelethu Dineshan. One big name that's missing in the list is Kannur strongman P.Jayarajan.