Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 31 (IANS): The CPM state committee meeting scheduled on Saturday is going to be crucial as the now estranged former CPM Kerala minister and Left Democratic Front (LDF) convenor E.P. Jayarajan is likely to be removed.

Reacting to the media speculation that he might be moved out, he said on Saturday, that since he is busy with some urgent work in his home town-Kannur, he is not taking part in the state committee meeting of the party held in the capital city.

The name of former State Minister and senior party leader T.P. Ramakrishnan, known to be one of the closest aides of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, has now surfaced for the new convenor.

Jayarajan for a while has been the cynosure of all eyes as he surprisingly has been taking a negative position after he was not made a politburo member and also missed the state CPM state secretary post.

On the crucial Lok Sabha polling date on April 26, the CPM was caught on the back foot after Jayarajan, soon after casting his vote admitted that he and senior BJP leader and Kerala in charge -- Prakash Javadekhar -- had met.

A week before his revelation, the CPM which was accusing the Congress party of being a training school for its leaders to join the BJP was jolted when the BJP candidate at Alappuzha Sobha Surendran said that T.G. Nandakumar (a known power broker who moves between Delhi and Kerala) had met her to discuss the entry of a very senior leader with a status equivalent to CM Vijayan into the BJP. However, she did not name the leader.

Incidentally, Jayarajan’s arch-rival, also the sitting Kannur Congress MP and state Congress President K. Sudhakaran, broke the news that the ‘tall’ leader who is seeking entry to the BJP was Jayarajan.

Soon after Jayarajan admitted that he had met Javadekhar, Vijayan expressed his and the party’s displeasure that Jayarajan has this habit of selecting ‘friends’ and he should have been more cautious.