There is an organised attempt to blame Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for every decision of the government or CPM, said politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan in an exclusive interview given to ‘Mathrubhumi’.

“This is an organised campaign to put the party in bad light and establish that the party is under the control of a single leader,” Kodiyeri said.

He was reacting to the question on the decision to keep leaders who contested the polls for two consecutive terms away from the 2021 assembly elections.

“It is a collective decision. We discussed it many times. We did not take the decision on one day,” he said. The four politburo members who were active in the state assembly elections (MA Baby, S Ramachandran Pillai, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and Pinarayi Vijayan) discussed the issue initially which was passed by the state secretariat unanimously, Kodiyeri said.

“We were able to do this because the party is organisationally strong. There is no factionalism currently. The leadership is unified,” he added.

Read the first part of the interview (in Malayalam) here