Gokulam Gopalan faction lays siege to Yogam HQ

KOLLAM: Alleging that the returning officer for the SNDP elections, in connivance with Yogam general secretary Vellappalli Natesan, was trying to sabotage the Yogam elections scheduled for Saturday, a faction led by Sree Narayana Dharma Vedi chairman Gokulam Gopalan took out a march to the Yogam headquarters here and laid siege to it on Thursday.

The Gopalan faction was provoked by the returning officer’s decision that only those who are in the voters list would be allowed as booth agents of any candidate.

Inaugurating the march and siege, Gokulam Gopalan said that at the meeting convened by the Kollam SP to ensure smooth conduct of the elections, it was decided that any permanent member having a photo identity card could be allowed to be booth agents.

But sabotaging this decision, the returning officer Santhosh Kumar decided to allow only those whose names had been included in the voters’ list as booth agents, he said.

He said that this would be impractical as only the names of one out of 200 permanent members would be included in the voters’ list. He alleged that the returning officer was conniving with general secretary Vellappalli Natesan.

Gopalan said that the community members would not accept this as they wanted to remove the corrupt leadership from the helm of affairs of the Yogam.

The police stopped the marchers from approaching the central office of the Yogam.

Later, a group of leaders were allowed to enter the office to submit the list of booth agents. As the returning officer was not present they were asked to submit the list on Friday.

However, they later submitted the list to the Kollam SP on Thursday evening.

G Mohandas, M B Sreekumar, Biju Ramesh, K S Gopakumar and D Rajkumar (Unni) led the march.

The elections will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and the results will be announced in the evening.