Loss at Kollam Corporation: Mayoral candidate VK Anirudhan announces withdrawal from politics; walks out of committee meeting

KOLLAM: District Secretariat member VK Anirudhan, who was the mayoral candidate of Kollam Corporation, walked out of the CPM Kollam district committee meeting that was held to discuss the state committee's local body election review report. Anirudhan was angered by the report's mention that a person popular among the public was not promoted as the mayoral candidate. He also announced that he would no longer be in active politics since MV Govindan found that he is unfit to be mayor.

Before leaving, VK Anirudhan said that he joined the CPM after listening to Sambasivan's Kadhaprasangam and that he had only worked in the parliamentary field for a short time because he was active in party activities. Anirudhan said emotionally that he had become the president of the Sakthikulangara panchayat 35 years ago and had been fully focused on party work since then. He left the committee after explaining his party heritage for about five minutes. None of the leaders was willing to call him back. Although the leaders called him after the committee, his phone was switched off.

The review report was presented by State Secretary MV Govindan. VK Anirudhan spoke emotionally, although MV Govindan did not mention anyone's name when he spoke about the mayoral candidate.

Unlike previous elections, in addition to district secretariat member VK Anirudhan, two district committee members and a former mayor contested the Kollam Corporation elections as CPM candidates. All of them were defeated. None of them were highlighted as a mayoral candidate by the CPM. The report says that the selection of candidates in the Kollam Corporation was flawed and there were lapses in the election process.