Thiruvananthapuram: Despite snatching a historic victory in the recent assembly elections, it has now been found that the pre-poll assessment of the CPM had gone wrong in some constituencies.
The CPM lost nine seats that it anticipated to win and registered victory in seven seats that the party thought it would lose.
In a way, this also indicated the gap between the data collected by party machinery at the grassroots level and the actual result. The party has been going off the mark in terms of its electoral assessment, quite often.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, the party had claimed victory prospects in 18 seats. The leadership came to this conclusion based on the data and feedback provided by the district committees to the state committee.
Subsequently, the lapses in the assessment were evaluated by the state leadership self-critically. The party decided to go in for a detailed postmortem since many seats that it anticipated to win, did not come to their kitty.
Besides evaluating the reasons for the defeat, the party also decided to hold leaders accountable at different levels and initiate disciplinary action against them.
The CPM had expected to lose the Kuttiyadi constituency which had witnessed open revolt from a section of party members over candidate selection.
The party was not sure of Kadnapallly Ramachandran’s victory in Kannur and K P Sumesh’s victory in Azhikode.
Besides, the CPM had also expected defeat in CPI seats Thrissur and Nadapuram.
The party had not anticipated the victory of minister Ahmed Devarkovil in Kozhikode south. On the other hand, the CPM was sure of Jose K Mani’s victory in the Pala constituency.
The seats that the party expected to lose, but won:
(Margin of victory within brackets)
Kannur (1745)
Azhikode (6141)
Kuttiyadi (333)
Nadapuram (4035)
Thiruvambady (5596)
Kozhikode South (12,459)
Thrissur (946)
Seats which party expected to win, but lost:
(Drop in votes within brackets)
Mannarkkad (5870)
Chalakudy(1057)
Thrippunithura (992)
Perumbavoor (2899)
Kaduthuruthy (4256)
Pala (15,378)
Kundara (4523)
Karunagapally (29,208)
Kovalam (11,562)
