THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sticking to party tradition, the 20th edition of the State conference of the CPM began in the city in an elegant, but grand, style on Tuesday. Around 10 am, all the conference delegates marched to the specially spruced up Martyr’s Column at Asan Square in front of the Kerala University headquarters, led by the top brass of the party, including general secretary Prakash Karat and accompanied by the Red volunteers. Before this, the torch from Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium was handed over to State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, who placed the same in front of the AKG Centre. A ‘kudakkallu’ (umbrella stone), done in laterite from Ottoor, near Varkala, by Jayachandran, a faculty with Fine Arts College, was placed at the Martyr’s Column as a symbol of the uprising of the downtrodden. As the senior-most member of the party and the lone living member among the 32 members who walked out of the Calcutta Congress to form the CPM, V S Achuthanandan, offered floral tribute at the Martyr’s Column amidst slogan-chanting comrades, hundreds of red balloons were released into the sky. After the floral tribute, delegates assembled in front of the AKG Centre for the flag-hoisting, also by Achuthanandan. In a slow-paced short speech against the imperialist forces, which are showing signs of decline, and on the return of Communism in many parts of the world, the Opposition Leader stuck to his typical style at the end, when he exhorted, “Uyaruka raktha pathakey”,(rise, blood red flag). It was red all around as the city was draped with party flags and festoons much before the inaugural event, under the able guidance of reception committee chairman M Vijayakumar and general convener Kadakampally Surendran.
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