Headlines
Won't campaign in by-election: Achuthanandan
Thiruvananthapuram, June 1
Former Kerala chief
minister V.S. Achuthanandan on Monday said he won't campaign for the
June 27 Aruvikara by-election to the assembly unless the CPI-M asked him
to.
Achuthanandan is apparently miffed that the invitation for
the first Left Democratic Front (LDF) election convention did not carry
his name. The convention begins on Wednesday at Aruvikara.
The
convention will be inaugurated by Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the state
secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist. The CPI-M candidate
at Aruvikara is M. Vijayakumar.
Achuthanandan had on Sunday
presided over the meeting of the Marxist-led LDF to discuss the
preparation for the election campaign.
The Aruvikara campaign is being overseen by CPI-M leader Pinarayi Vijayan, a rival of Achuthanandan.
Achuthanandan
has also been dropped from the state committee of the party for the
first time since the CPI-M was founded in 1964.