Kozhikode: The CPM district leadership has initiated steps to mollify the RJD leaders who have been fuming over the recent local body poll defeat, apparently in a move to douse any attempt of a switch to the UDF. The party's Kozhikode district committee has blamed the CPM for its candidates' loss in the civic body elections.

RJD's North and South Mandalam committees have communicated to the party's state leadership that they would not cooperate with the LDF in the upcoming Assembly elections. Subsequently, the CPM leadership invited RJD representatives for discussions before an internal commission constituted by the CPM to probe the loss of LDF candidates in various wards of the Kozhikode Corporation.

A senior leader of the party told Onmanorama that, after CPM district secretary M Mehboob held preliminary discussions with RJD district leaders, an RJD delegation is scheduled to attend the commission's meeting on Thursday afternoon.

The RJD district leadership has alleged that sections of the CPM's local leadership played an active role in the defeat of RJD candidates in Nadakkavu, Moonnalingal, and Mavoor Road wards of the city corporation. "We have informed our state leadership that we can no longer cooperate with the CPM. A majority of workers in the district feel that the RJD should switch to the UDF, as the CPM leadership deliberately worked to ensure the defeat of RJD candidates in the city corporation elections," said a senior RJD leader in Kozhikode. He added that the party would soon release the letter submitted to the CPM state committee. "We want to hear the CPM's explanation for the defeats in wards where RJD contested," he said.

It was the strong protest by the RJD district leadership against the CPM over the defeat in local body poll that once again revived speculation about the party’s possible realignment with the UDF. Last year, preliminary discussions were held between RJD and Congress leaders to bring the party back into the UDF ahead of the local body elections, but those talks did not yield results. Fresh discussions are now reportedly underway to realign the RJD with the UDF ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections.

In the previous Assembly elections, the RJD contested three seats but managed to win only Koothuparamba, where K P Mohanan emerged victorious. Senior party leader Shreyams Kumar was defeated by Congress leader T Siddique in the Kalpetta constituency by a margin of 5,470 votes. Shreyams Kumar had earlier won the seat in the 2006 and 2011 elections.

The RJD has been increasingly dissatisfied over the past several months, alleging that it has not been given due consideration within the LDF. When the party was part of the UDF, it was allotted seven Assembly seats to contest, in addition to a Rajya Sabha seat. However, after joining the LDF, the party was allotted only three seats in the 2021 Assembly elections.

Though the Rajya Sabha seat held by M P Veerendra Kumar during the party's stint in the UDF was later given to his son Shreyams Kumar after the RJD joined the LDF, the seat was taken back upon completion of his tenure. The party's dissatisfaction deepened further when the LDF denied it a ministerial berth, even as four other parties with a single MLA each were accommodated in the Cabinet.

The renewed discussion on a possible change of fronts has gained momentum in the backdrop of the Kozhikode district committees' strong stand against the CPM, which leads the ruling LDF.