Pinarayi Vijayan, designated Communist ministers pay respects at party memorials

Ahead of the swearing-in of every Left government starting with the EMS regime in 1957, it has been a tradition for leaders of the party to queue up at the Vayalar and Punnapra memorials and pay their respects.

Ahead of the oath-taking ceremony of the new LDF government, CM-designate Pinarayi Vijayan and ministers-designate of the CPM and the CPI drove to Alappuzha to pay their respects to the martyrs of the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising.

Vijayan, along with ten ministers-designate of CPM and CPI and Speaker-designate MB Rajesh, paid floral tributes to the martyrs of the party first at the Vayalar memorial, followed by the one at Valiyachudukadu in Punnapra. The leaders raised their hands in salute to members of the undivided Communist Party who were killed in a movement against then-Prime Minister of Travancore Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer in 1946.

The incident, in which hundreds of Communist workers were reportedly killed, strengthened the roots of the Left in Kerala, especially among its working-class. Ahead of the swearing-in of every Left government starting with the EMS regime in 1957, it has been a tradition for leaders of the party to queue up at the Vayalar and Punnapra memorials and pay their respects. At the Valiyachudukadu memorial, senior leaders of the party including the recently-deceased KR Gowri and her husband TV Thomas have been cremated.

Vijayan, the first chief minister to be elected back to power in the last 40 years, will be sworn in as the head of a 21-member cabinet at the Central Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram at 3:30 pm today. Attendance has been curtailed to less than 500 persons in view of the Covid-19 transmission in the state.

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