Ambalappuzha: 'Chetta' Sudhakaran snatches Left space from CPM

Onmanorama tracks the battle in 12 closely fought constituencies where stakes are high and margins razor-thin: Nemom, Manjeshwar, Palakkad, Kunnathunad, Pala, Kottarakkara, Peravoor, Thripunithura, Ambalappuzha, Taliparamba, Payyanur and Nattika. Our team will capture the ground-level pulse and update the poll-meter.

G Sudhakaran was in danger of being seen as a "disgruntled power-seeker" by voters in Ambalappuzha after he decided to contest as an 'independent' with the Congress support. "How can someone like comrade Sudhakaran, who had till now held on to Left principles, align with a party he had furiously opposed all his life," was the general refrain.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan came to his rescue. In an interview with Manorama News, Pinarayi described Sudhakaran's move to fight against the party as "chettatharam" (a mean act). Sudhakaran pounced on this seemingly abusive language to establish that he was more Left than Pinarayi.

"Chettapura" or "chettakudil" means the house of the poor, Sudhakaran said. "By calling me 'chetta' the Chief Minister was insulting the poor," Sudhakaran said.

Sudhakaran also reminded voters that he grew up in a "chettakudil" (thatched hut). The former minister now gets thunderous applause wherever he speaks about the CM's abusive language during campaign stops.

"He made the CM sound like a feudal lord, a class detested by voters in Ambalappuzha whether they vote for the CPM or the Congress," said Alissery Janardhanan, a former coir worker.

Within Ambalappuzha segment falls Punnapra, where 29 comrades who worked in rice fields, coir factories and fishing boats of the rich were shot dead by C P Ramaswamy's police in 1946 at the start of the Punnapra-Vayalar agitation.

It looks like, in the first leg, the three-time former CPM MLA has taken a lead over his CPM rival H Salam. Even as a tall CPM leader, Sudhakaran had amassed for himself a formidable reputation as an honest and efficient minister.

There are other factors that favour Sudhakaran. Salam is not among the popular CPM MLAs. Before Sudhakaran's defection, Aroor and Ambalappuzha were the two constituencies in Alappuzha district marked as "least winnable" by the CPM District Secretariat.

It will also be lazy to look at Ambalappuzha and interpret it as a CPM bastion like certain constituencies in Kannur or even the neighbouring Alappuzha constituency.

Dumped in Arabian Sea
Sudhakaran, though he had won three times in a row (2006, 2011 and 2016), had lost here in 1987, even if by a wafer thin margin of 124 votes, to Congress’s V Dinakaran, a Dheevara leader.

In 1982, CPM's Punnapra-Vayalar hero P K Chandranandan was defeated by Dinakaran.

And in 1977, in the Assembly elections after Emergency was lifted by Indira Gandhi, another CPM hero who emerged from the near mythical struggles of the working class in Alappuzha, V S Achuthanandan, lost. This was particularly painful for the CPM as Achuthanandan's campaign slogan, tactically coined for him by E M S Namboodirippad, was 'Emergency Arabikkadalil' ('Dump Emergency in Arabian Sea').

This was an updated version of the most powerful Punnapra-Vayalar slogan 'American Model Arabikkadalil' (Dump the American Model in Arabian Sea), a call against the administrative reforms of Travancore diwan C P Ramaswamy Iyer in which the actions of the royal family and the diwan will remain out of bounds for the people's government.

Hope was that the slogan would trigger in Ambalappuzha voters’ memories of the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising and bring in votes for the CPM. Instead, Achuthanandan lost by a margin of 5585 votes to RSP's K Kumara Pillai.

Evidence of Salam's unpopularity
That Ambalappuzha is not a guaranteed CPM bastion, and also a reflection of H Salam's uninspiring performance as MLA, can be found in the results of the 2025 local body polls.

The UDF won 13 of the 24 wards in Alappuzha Municipality that fall within Ambalappuzha constituency; the LDF has only 10. Last time, the UDF won just two of these 24 wards: Mannathu and Vattayal.

What's more, the UDF rules the Punnapra South Panchayat in which the memorial for the Punnapra-Vayalar martyrs has been erected. The panchayat was wrested from the CPM this time.

Rejuvenated CPM
However, Sudhakaran can cash in on this anti-CPM mood only if the UDF works cohesively and in a determined fashion for a candidate its workers had always seen as the enemy.

Another challenge for Sudhakaran is a rejuvenated CPM. Sudhakaran's exit has instilled a fresh vengeful vigour in cadres. It was only a month ago that Salam was left for dead but now the party wants him to win at any cost.

The BJP is still a fringe player. In the last decade, the BJP did manage to make its presence felt in certain urban pockets but this was not good enough to even give a minor scare to both the major segments. And in the last local body polls, the BJP did not make any impact in the Ambalappuzha segment.