A pilgrimage to party Congress !

KOZHIKODE: “I remember your face. You  regularly attend party conferences,” were the words that greeted CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan as he marched into the Party Congress Organising Committee office on Wednesday. Nirmal Kumar Banerjee, a veteran comrade from Darjeeling, then shook hands with the bemused Vijayan before walking off to see district secretary T P Ramakrishnan to seek permission to attend the delegates conference at the Tagore Hall. Banerjee was one of the many communists, whose undying love for the party and its ideology had taken them to Kozhikode.Many such comrades reached the Tagore Hall where the delegate conference of the congress was being held only to be denied entry as they are not included in the delegates list.  “We have had people from many states coming and asking us to let them in. They have a number of tales to tell, who they are and what they did. But unfortunately we cannot let them in as we have been instructed to only allow entry to people with proper passes,” said Pradeep P, a red volunteer from Vengeri who was manning one of the entry points to the Tagore Hall.Another character that attracted attention was K Rosaiah who arrived at the venue dressed as Vladimir Lenin. Shouting messages in Telugu, he managed to attract a small crowd around him, one of whom was able to translate his speech. “He was talking about how he learned about Lenin and his philosophy when he was at college and how he thinks it is the right way forward. He is distressed about how the party has deviated from the original Leninist principles,” said an observer.Party officials said that many people had arrived from states like Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra. These people expected neither a red carpet welcome nor proper accommodation and were content to pay out of their pockets for food and accommodation. “Many such people are already in the city and we expect hundreds more to arrive. We have set up six help desks in the city where volunteers will direct them to proper food and accommodation,” said  Baiju, a member of the organising committee.