Thrissur/Kasaragod: The CPM's ongoing district conferences have suffered a major setback with the High Court of Kerala intervening amid rising COVID-19 cases.
The party's district conferences in Thrissur and Kasaragod were inaugurated on Friday.
Now, under pressure from the court, the CPM has announced that its three-day district conference in Kasaragod that had earlier been curtailed to two days will end tonight.
The party is yet to provide an update on its conference in Thrissur that as it stands will conclude on Saturday.
The decision comes in the wake of ruling by a division bench of the High Court on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by an advocate's clerk has put the party in a predicament.
Responding to the PIL, the High Court has issued an interim order banning all public events in Kasaragod with the participation of more than 50 persons.
The PIL was filed in the wake of the Kasaragod collector revoking an earlier order that imposed restrictions there to control the COVID situation in the district.
The petitioner had claimed that the restrictions were lifted to facilitate the CPM conferences. The court asked what special privileges political parties have while the curbs were applicable even for Republic Day celebrations
The state government had on Thursday imposed curbs on districts based on hospital admissions. As per the order, the disaster management authority had categorized districts into A, B and C based on hospital admissions with C the most affected. As per the government order, public events are banned in districts that fall under categories B and C.
However, with the district collector revoking the restrictions on Kasaragod, it was reportedly excluded from the above-mentioned classification giving the green light to the CPM's conference.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties have cried foul. Leader of Opposition, VD Satheesan has said that the ruling CPM was mocking the public. “To help CPM, they have kept Thrissur and Kasaragod districts out of the A, B and C categories to facilitate the conferences. It is to be noted that the TPR in these districts was more than 34%," said Satheesan.