Will attend secretariat meetings; attempts to make it seem like Pinarayi has banned me: CPM Central Committee member PK Sreemathy 

KANNUR: CPM Central Committee member and former minister PK Sreemathy has reacted to the news that she was excluded from the party secretariat meeting. PK Sreemathy said that the news is baseless. 'I will attend the secretariat meeting again. I have no objection to attending if I am in Kerala when the secretariat meets. No one has said that there is any obstacle to attending state leadership meetings. This is news created to create confusion in the party. I suspect that there was an attempt to make people believe that Pinarayi has banned me,' Sreemathy clarified. "My centre of operations is Delhi. What Govindan Mash said is right," she said.

State Secretary MV Govindan had responded that the removal of PK Sreemathy from the CPM state secretariat was an organizational decision of the party. 'It is not the Chief Minister who should take a decision regarding participation in party committees. PK Sreemathy was a member of the CPM state committee and state secretariat. However, she was removed from the state committee and secretariat as she had crossed the age of 75. It cannot be said that she retired. She is working as the All India President of the Mahila Association. She was included in the Central Committee with special consideration as a woman working at the all-India level. A person is taken to the Central Committee not to participate in the organization work of Kerala, but to work at the all-India level," Govindan said.

Earlier reports had come out that PK Sreemathy was given an extraordinary ban by the CPM in Kerala. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in the state secretariat meeting that PK Sreemathy would not be able to participate in leadership meetings in Kerala as a member of the central committee. The news was that Vijayan had said this. The report said that the Chief Minister had announced this when the Secretariat meeting began last week and that the Chief Minister's position was that PK Sreemathy, as a member of the Central Committee, would not be able to attend the leadership meetings in Kerala. Following this, PK Sreemathy did not attend the Secretariat meeting on Friday. However, she did attend the State Committee meeting held on Saturday. There are reports that the Central Committee members in Kerala are given special responsibilities in the state, but it has been decided not to give PK Sreemathy any such responsibility.