Alappuzha (Kerala) | Veteran CPI(M) leader and former PWD minister G Sudhakaran on Wednesday said he has decided not to renew his party membership and so didn't apply for the same during the 2026 scrutiny process.
In a detailed Facebook post, Sudhakaran openly expressed displeasure over the alleged continuing neglect shown towards him by the Marxist party's state and district leaderships and said he does not wish to cause inconvenience to the leaders by continuing in the party.
However, the veteran didn't openly say in the FB post whether he would quit the ruling party or would join any other political platform.
Once a staunch loyalist of former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, Sudhakaran had served as the PWD minister in the first Pinarayi Vijayan government from 2016 to 2021.
He has not been on good terms with the CPI(M) leadership for some time and had been in the news many times for openly criticising some of the party leaders.
His decision to cut the decades-long ties with the CPI(M) comes at a time when the state is gearing up for the crucial Assembly polls.
In the FB post, the 79-year-old leader said he did not submit an application to renew his party membership during the 2026 membership scrutiny, and therefore, he did not have to pay the levy or subscription amount.
He said he was removed from the state committee in 2022 and has since been functioning as a branch committee member under the Alappuzha district committee. After suffering a fall and injury, he attended all branch meetings regularly except one, Sudhakaran noted.
Sudhakaran said that after serving 43 years as a state committee member, he continued to work at the branch level but alleged that the district secretary had not enquired about his situation even once.
He further claimed that despite having a 63-year-long association with the party, he was not assigned any public programmes by the district leadership over the past five years.
Referring to the 50th anniversary of the Emergency, he said that when a commemorative event was held at a hall near his residence, he was not even invited, despite having courted arrest and undergone imprisonment and alleged custodial assault during the early days of the Emergency for defying the ban.
Sudhakaran also alleged that a local committee member had made an insulting remarks even against his father through a social media post, and claimed that the person was a close associate of a district committee member. Sudhakaran further said he has continued to remain in the party here for the past five years, directly witnessing all this, and that he did not succumb to any inducement.
The former minister also took exception to certain remarks made by CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan at a recent press conference, claiming that the latter had used an expression suggesting that he did not deserve any consideration and had laughed while making the comment.
"In this situation, I do not wish to cause any inconvenience to the leaders concerned by continuing in the party. Therefore, during this membership scrutiny period, I am voluntarily refraining from renewing my membership," Sudhakaran said in the post.
However, he asserted that he would continue to stand firm with lakhs of people in upholding the party's ideological principles. There was no immediate reaction from CPI(M) leadership over Sudhakaran's FB post.
