a vijayaraghavan took over as cpm secretary at a crucial juncture when the party is preparing for an electoral battle to ensure the ldf governments continuity in an interview with toi he explains the partys view on dissent in kuttiyadi and why he considers congress is on the path to destruction among other things excerptsthough the party released its candidate list well ahead of others voices of dissent seems to have cast a shadow over the campaign how do you view thisthere has been a little bit of emotional response from a section of people who support us it happened before the candidate list was released now there isnt any dissent all our workers stood by the party and have started working for the success of ldf candidatestheonlystateinthecountry which is ruled by the left is kerala almost all prepoll surveys and local body poll results certainly give you confidence still what do you think about the probability of losingwe are confident of winning this time we are banking on the ldf governments achievements and the kind of development we ushered in the state the udf our main rivals are very weak our performance in the civic polls also gives us confidencewhat according to you are the merits and demerits of the opponentscongress doesnt have a proper plan they are just looking to win by riding on controversies they try to sabotage all developmental projects and are hobnobbing with bjpif congress doesnt come to power this time it may be very difficult for it to survive chances of bjp filling the void left by congress are high then cpm will be indirectly contributing to bjps rise how do you view the situationcongress is in peril because of its own flaws its destruction is inevitable it is not right to say that all those who are with it would go they can choose other options we are trying to woo people who have rallied behind congress and bjp bjp cant be strengthened in kerala it is an illusion being a political party which is in power at the centre bjp can influence the affairs in kerala using various government agencies but their plans will not work outthere are allegations that the party is under the chief ministers control earlier the party used to control the government why this role reversalas far as cpm is concerned the party has a collective leadership the party doesnt interfere in the daytoday affairs of the government which acts as per the constitution in the past five years there had not been any difference of opinion between the party and the government the chief minister has always acted only within the scope of the partys authorityin piravom kerala congress m has fielded dr sindhumol jacob a cpm member is it an instance of cpm infiltrating ldf constituentsit is not the fact what i could figure out after contacting the local leadership of the party is that she was not an active party member she hadnt renewed the