Kannur:  Former CPM Kannur District Committee member and whistleblower V Kunhikrishnan on Monday announced that he would contest the Assembly election as an independent candidate from Payyannur, the ultimate bastion of the Marxist party. He was expelled from the party after he publicly levelled corruption allegations against its leadership.

Kunhikrishnan hopes to turn the bastion in Kannur into a battleground with the backing of the Congress and the UDF, as in Alappuzha's Ambalapuzha.

His announcement came a day after the CPM declared that incumbent MLA T I Madhusoodanan would seek reelection from Payyannur, a move Kunhikrishnan had long anticipated. For weeks, he had hinted that he would enter the fray if the party fielded Madhusoodanan, the man at the centre of his allegations.

Kunhikrishnan had accused Madhusoodanan and other leaders of siphoning off funds collected for the family of slain CPM worker C V Dhanraj, as well as money raised to build the party’s Payyannur area committee office in 2016. Back then, Madhusoodanan was the CPM's Payyannur Area Committee secretary. Kunhikrishnan also alleged that funds raised for Madhusoodanan’s 2021 election campaign were misappropriated.

These allegations first became public in 2022-2023, when Kunhikrishnan was the CPM's Payyannur Area Secretary. But he had not come out in public. At that time, the party removed Madhusoodanan from the party's Kannur District Committee from the party's District Secretariat, the highest decision-making body in the district. But the party also removed Kunhikrishnan from the post of the Area Secretary. Exactly a year later, Madhusoodanan, considered close to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, was reinstated in the District Secretariat.

The party also extended an olive branch to Kunhikrishnan by inducting him into the District Committee. But behind the scenes, he kept raising the issue and demanding that those responsible for misappropriating party funds be held accountable.

This January, after nearly four years, Kunhikrishnan came out in public, raising the same allegations. On February 4, he released a book titled 'Nethruthwathe Anikal Thiruthanam' (The Rank Should Correct the Leadership) at Gandhi Park in Payyannur, detailing what he described as corruption and decay within the party structure. The book’s first edition sold out on the day of its launch, an outcome that supporters portrayed as evidence of the resonance his allegations had found among party sympathisers.

“The party has not given an explanation that convinces the people,” Kunhikrishnan said on Monday, March 16. “In such a situation, the party and the Left Front are bound to lose. But the party and the Left should not lose. That is why we strengthened the struggle against the wrong line within.”

Kunhikrishnan, who was with the CPM for 50 years, said many party sympathisers had urged him to contest against the party. “Several people who love the party kept asking me to enter the fray. After considering all that, I decided to contest,” he said. Kunhikrishnan said his campaign would rely largely on media and social media outreach rather than a traditional, resource-heavy election machinery. “I am not planning to spend money and create a spectacle. I will not collect funds from people and conduct an extravagant campaign. But elections involve expenses, and those who love me will meet them,” he said.

He said that Congress leaders had not yet formally communicated support, but expressed hope they would back his candidacy. He cited the situation in Ambalapuzha, where veteran CPM leader and former minister G Sudhakaran is contesting as an independent, and the Congress is widely expected to support him. Ambalapuzha is also a stronghold of the CPM.

“My appeal is not just to the Congress or the UDF. I am seeking support from everyone,” he said, adding that a large section of voters within the Left itself may quietly stand with him.

Yet, making even a dent in Payyannur is a formidable challenge.

If Kerala is considered the last major stronghold of the CPM in India, Payyannur is widely regarded as one of its most secure citadels. Over decades, the party has built a dense organisational network here, with many supporters depending on the party's co-operative institutions.

The CPM has never lost the constituency. In the last Assembly election, Madhusoodanan secured 93,695 votes, winning by a margin of 49,780 votes and commanding about 62.5 per cent vote share. The Congress, with roughly 29 per cent, managed 43,915 votes.

On paper, the arithmetic makes the contest look lopsided. Yet Kunhikrishnan’s candidacy injects an unpredictable element—a former insider challenging the party in its own fortress under an anti-corruption banner.

The party is also facing pockets of dissent within Payyannur itself. In the recent municipal election, Vaishak C, a former DYFI leader expelled from the party after confronting alleged local strongmen, defeated the CPM candidate in the Kara division. The upset pushed the party to third place in a ward it had previously held, signalling that not all discontent has remained contained.

Vaishak recently met Kunhikrishnan and urged him to contest the election. Several CPM leaders, including a former Payyannur MLA, are also understood to have extended tacit support to him.

Even if Madhusoodanan has managed to shake off the corruption allegations, he faces a growing perception that he has become inaccessible, with critics dubbing him an “Innova MLA”, a reference to claims that he restricts his appearances to places reachable by car.

Perhaps for the first time in decades, the CPM’s Payyannur does not look entirely impregnable, especially when the challenge is rising from within.