Kasaragod:
 East Eleri grama panchayat -- a Congress stronghold long fractured by factionalism -- delivered its familiar mix of action, drama, and brinkmanship on Thursday, the penultimate day for filing nominations.

At the heart of it was the mercurial James Panthammakkal, the former panchayat president and the leader of the now-disbanded rebel outfit Democratic Development Front (DDF). The day began with him engaging in a physical confrontation with Vasudevan, district president of the Deshiya Karshaka Thozhilali Federation (DKTF), inside the District Congress Committee (DDC) office in Kasaragod.
 Both later insisted the fisticuffs were “personal” and not linked to the fierce seat-sharing battle underway.

Videos showed Panthammakkal kicking and punching Vasudevan and the two holding each other by the collars. The clash erupted just after the District Congress core committee meeting, led by state Congress vice-president M Liju, wound up without deciding on East Eleri.

But while Panthammakkal fought for seats at the DCC office, politics in his village, 60 km away, moved ahead without him and the DCC’s nod.

The UDF mandalam core committee finalised all 18 candidates and filed nominations. The list excluded the two names he had recommended and included the one name he vehemently opposed: incumbent panchayat president and his long-time rival, Joseph Mutholil.

“We are the official nominees selected by the mandalam core committee. Usually, the DCC accepts the decisions taken at the mandalam level,” said Mutholil, who is contesting from Panthammakkal’s home ward, No. 10 (Kannivayal).
Whether he will be the Congress’s official candidate with the party symbol will be decided on Friday -- a decision that could also reveal how much influence Panthammakkal still holds over the district and state leadership.

Once the man who delivered a body blow to the Congress -- reducing it to a single seat in 2015 and again retaining control of the panchayat in 2020 -- Panthammakkal now stands on shakier ground. He, now as DCC Vice-President, continues to wield leverage in the DCC and KPCC.

“I demanded only two seats, one for Sherly Cheenkallel and one for Jessy Tom. DCC will decide on that tomorrow,” he said. Sherly is the sitting member from his faction; Jessy Tom was among the 10 DDF members who swept the 2015 polls and seized the panchayat. 
He accused Mutholil of engineering Jessy’s defeat in 2020. “I wanted her fielded in Chittarikkal South (No. 3), the ward he carved out for himself. She must contest there to avenge that defeat.”

He, however, dispelled reports that he would take on Mutholil directly. “He is contesting in my ward, but I have given it in writing to the KPCC that I am not contesting this time,” said Panthammakkal, who has been either president or vice-president of the panchayat since 2005.

In exchange for not contesting, he demanded that Mutholil not be fielded on the party ticket. “He defied the Congress whip and became president with CPM support. That indiscipline cannot be rewarded,” said Panthammakkal, the DCC vice-president. “I will teach him discipline.”

But the Congress in East Eleri has closed ranks against him. “You saw what happened at the DCC office. He is exposed. We have moved ahead with our candidates,” said Mandalam committee president George Karimadam.

A KPCC member from the panchayat echoed that sentiment: “It is time the party listens to workers on the ground. James Panthammakkal is no longer the force he once was,” she said.
 

Karimadam has reportedly told the DCC that at least 12 of the 18 candidates nominated by the UDF mandalam committee would win, regardless of who is fielded against them, whether from within the party or outside it.

The heart of the dispute
Contrary to reports that he demanded seven seats -- the same number the DDF won in 2020 -- Panthammakkal told Onmanorama he sought only two. But he said he insisted on representation for both Hindus and Muslims. “We didn’t have a Muslim representative for 35 years in the panchayat. Ayoob has been fielded in ward 17 (Kadumeni) on my insistence.”

Yet, he accused panchayat president Mutholil of teaming up with the CPM to redraw ward boundaries to the Congress’s disadvantage. “Because of the delimitation, the Congress will lose at least six wards to the CPM. Kamballur will slip by a margin of at least 350 votes,” he said.

In 2020, the DDF won that ward with 602 votes, while the CPM polled only 330, and the Congress trailed at 276. To be sure, the DDF and the Congress drew from the same vote bank and should ideally retain Kamballur.

A long, bitter trail
The bitterness dates back to 2015, when the DDF stormed to power with 10 of 16 seats, leaving the Congress with just one. The CPM, with DDF’s tacit support, won four for the first time. The DDF contested the December 2015 election on the football symbol.

In 2020, Panthammakkal sought written permission from the Vadakara-based Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP), a Congress ally, to use the football symbol in four wards where others had also claimed it. Football is the RMP’s priority symbol, and the party granted him permission.

After the polls, with the Congress and the DDF tied 7-7 and the CPM holding two seats, the RMP issued a whip directing those four DDF members to back the Congress’s presidential nominee, Mutholil. They ignored the whip and voted for their leader, prompting Mutholil to petition the State Election Commission seeking their disqualification.

The Commission acted on the complaint and disqualified the four DDF members in 2023, ironically at a time when Mutholil himself had become president with CPM support, defying the Congress’s own whip.

Between 2020 and 2023, the panchayat became a stage for an almost absurd run of political theatrics.

The then KPCC president, K Sudhakaran, pushed for a merger between the DDF and the Congress in 2022. As part of the deal, Panthammakkal was to step down as panchayat president once the Congress handed him four director posts in the East Eleri Service Cooperative Bank.
But after securing those posts, he rallied three Congress directors and demanded the bank presidency, angering Congress loyalists.

The Congress narrowly retained the presidency of the bank after a DDF director cast an invalid vote and the subsequent toss of a coin in Congress’s favour. Despite protests, the merger went ahead on November 20, 2022.

In April 2023, Panthammakkal stepped down as panchayat president but insisted that his nominee succeed him. Baffling party workers, the DCC agreed and issued a whip to the seven Congress members to vote for his candidate. But the members rebelled and quietly secured the support of the two CPM members, ensuring Mutholil’s victory -- in open defiance of the party.

By then, the Election Commission's disqualification order had reduced the board to 12, with Mutholil commanding a majority, and the Congress eventually accepted him as its own.

Panthammakkal argued that Mutholil manipulated the process before the Election Commission. “RMP doesn’t even have a committee in Kasaragod to issue a whip. What they published was a newspaper advertisement. Second, how can the Election Commission expect us, who defeated the Congress, to vote for the Congress candidate? Wouldn’t that betray the people’s mandate?”

He accused Mutholil of returning the CPM’s favour by agreeing to redraw ward boundaries to suit the Marxist party. “When our members were disqualified, he made CPM members in charge of our wards. They used that influence during delimitation,” he said and added that the Congress will lose at least six wards to the CPM. “He aligned with the CPM by defying the party, and then went on to help it during delimitation,” said Panthammakkal.

Mutholil, for his part, alleged that Panthammakkal was aiding the CPM by preparing to field rebels against official Congress candidates. Elections will come and go, but factionalism appears to be the only constant in East Eleri's Congress.