In a below-the-belt attack, CPM state secretariat member M V Jayarajan on Wednesday targeted K P Ramani, wife of Taliparamba's UDF-backed Independent candidate T K Govindan, over her decision to publicly back her husband, saying she should "account for the party's food she had".

Speaking to reporters in Kasaragod on Wednesday, Jayarajan launched a sharp attack on both Ramani and Govindan, who recently quit the CPM and decided to take on party candidate P K Shyamala in Taliparamba.
Ramani, a member of the CPM's Sreekandapuram area committee, attended the UDF election convention in Taliparamba on Monday, organised after Govindan filed his nomination papers. The CPM expelled her from the party soon after.

Explaining her decision, she said she accompanied her husband because she could not bear to see her husband being isolated and taunted by the party, saying even his wife was not with him. She said she was aware that the party would initiate disciplinary action and was prepared to accept it. But Ramani made it clear that she was not giving up on communist ideology. "I have worked for the party for 49 years. Even if I am expelled, I will continue as a party sympathiser," she said.

Ramani said her husband, a former school teacher, had been the family's provider. "We depended on 'mashe'. We ate the food he brought home. We worked for the party but were not dependent on it for food," she said. Ramani, who was also a member of the CPM Taliparamba Mandalam committee, also backed T K Govindan's version of events within the mandalam committee meeting, where a majority opposed the candidature of CPM nominee Shyamala, the wife of CPM state secretary M V Govindan.

Ramani, a former Malappattam grama panchayat president and Irikkur block panchayat president, said her husband continued to enjoy strong support in Malappattam. Govindan, for his part, said he was contesting not against an individual but against what he called the CPM's growing tendency towards nepotism. Asked whether he wanted the LDF to lose the election, he avoided a direct reply, saying it was for the people to decide.

M V Jayarajan picked on Ramani's food comment and asked her to provide an account for the food she had at the Sreekandapuram party office. Jayarajan described T K Govindan as a "class traitor" and said Ramani too had aligned with him. However, according to Govindan, the opposition to Shyamala's candidature was first raised in the CPM district secretariat.

"There was overwhelming opposition to the candidature, and M V Jayarajan said she would submit all the names suggested by the District Secretariat members to the State Secretariat," said Govindan. "But Jayarajan sent only one name, that was of P K Shyamala," said Govindan, explaining who the traitor was. Jayarajan was in Kasaragod to campaign for LDF's independent candidate Shanavas Padhur.