CPM still wields power in Taliparamba but may have to sweat it out this time

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.

Kannur: For decades, Taliparamba has been a fortress the CPM rarely had to defend. The last breach was way back in 1970, when the Congress’s C P Govindan Nambiar scraped through by just 909 votes. Since then, the seat has delivered consistent mandates to the Left, often with vote shares above 50%.

Fifty-six years later, Taliparamba is no longer a foregone conclusion, not just because the CPM is a divided house, but the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) appears more cohesive now.

The numbers are with CPM candidate P K Shyamala, wife of the party’s state secretary M V Govindan.
But the mood and the momentum are with the UDF, which is backing T K Govindan, a veteran Marxist leader who quit the party to contest as an independent candidate. He was the most senior member in the CPM's Kannur District Secretariat, the highest decision-making body. He walked out of the party after M V Govindan announced his wife as the candidate, ignoring vociferous and almost one-sided protests from three party committees in Kannur.

But if there is an electoral slide for CPM, it may have started in 2021. M V Govindan won from Taliparamaba with a comfortable margin of 22,689 votes, but it was around half of the 40,617-vote winning margin for CPM’s James Mathew in 2016. His vote share also dropped nearly five points to 52%.

Since then, the slide has sharpened. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Congress's strongman K Sudhakaran secured a lead of around 8,000 votes in the Taliparamba assembly segment, perhaps for the first time.

In the December 2025 local body elections, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) managed to claw back with a lead of 8,000 votes, but well short of Govindan's depleted winning margin in 2021.

During the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, around 14,000 names were added, said Congress Taliparamba Block Committee President and former District Panchayat member P K Saraswathi. "Of the 14,000, 12,000 were added by the Congress and the Muslim League (IUML)," she said. "We have a real good chance of winning this time. UDF will have to poll all the votes it got in 2021, and T K Govindan will bring in the rest," she said.

It is easier said than done in a constituency where voting for the CPM is a habit for many. The constituency consists of some contrasts: Anthoor and Taliparamba municipalities, and seven grama panchayats. The LDF retains overwhelming control in most rural pockets. It also controls all 29 divisions in Anthoor municipality, several of them without contest, including Shyamala's home division of Morazha.

But the UDF has consolidated in key pockets, controlling Chapparapadavu, Kolachery, and leading in Taliparamba municipality with 17 of 35 divisions against the LDF’s 15.

“The perception is that the UDF is weak here. That is not true. Unlike Payyannur, the Muslim League and the Congress are strong in the local bodies they control. They are making inroads in Kurumathur, Mayyil and Pariyaram,” said a former CPM district committee member from Taliparamba. “The CPM projects invincibility through one-sided wins in places like Anthoor and Malappattam. If the UDF has to win, there should be churning in Anthoor and Malappattam," he said.

A CPI leader in Taliparamba said that the UDF appeared more cohesive now, with visible unity at T K Govindan’s convention. Congress leader Koyyam Janardhanan, who is contesting as a rebel candidate might corner some votes, but there is general acceptance of Govindan among the UDF rank and file, he said.

A divided house, but a working machine
P K Shyamala had headed Taliparamba and Anthoor municipalities. After she came under attack following her candidature, the party leadership has closed ranks publicly.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan defended the choice, saying the decision was taken at the district level and that Shyamala was the most suitable candidate from the constituency. M V Govindan dismissed allegations of nepotism: “She is an eligible candidate on her own right. Even before our wedding, she was a district committee member of the DYFI.”

Shyamala herself struck a calm note: “The party is behind me. So I am not affected by the allegations around me. I don’t have to take the criticism personally.”

But the discontent against the candidate is palpable in the constituency. “There is opposition from top to bottom… even in her home turf of Morazha (division in Anthoor,” said the former district committee member. “An important local secretary told me he was rowing, mechanically.”

The rebel who changed the script
T K Govindan has become the face of discontent. “My fight is not against Shyamala,” he said. “I am contesting against the deterioration of inner-party democracy… The policy of imposing family members on the electorate is not restricted to Taliparamba; it is a new tendency across the party. Even the Chief Minister is not able to stop it,” he said. "But if Pinarayi had attended the first District Secretariat meeting, he would have never approved her name."

T K Govindan, a CPM insider for 60 years, knows where to take the battle. At Bakkalam in CPM citadel Anthoor, he stopped to speak to a women's squad canvassing door-to-door for CPM on Sunday.

Govindan told them not to work blindly for the party. The women replied that the party had seeped into their blood. He pushed back: “Can that bond be deeper than what the party once meant to me? I left after realising what the party has become,” he said, urging them to reflect on it themselves.

Both the former CPM district committee member and the CPI leader from Taliparamba said they were certain the CPI would lose votes. “But we cannot predict whether those votes will go to Govindan or NOTA, or if the disgruntled voters will stay home, ” said the former district committee leader.

UDF senses an opening
In places such as Pariyaram, UDF workers openly questioned Govindan’s credibility and feared he might return to the LDF in case of a hung assembly. “We don’t trust you,” they told him at a mandalam committee meeting on Sunday. His response: “I will be with you irrespective of whether I win or lose.”

Saraswathi said Govindan has a calming effect on the youth. She said caste equations could also play a role. For years, the UDF was hovering around the 50,000 mark. In 2021, the UDF added around 20,000 more votes by fielding V P Abdul Rasheed, a young Congress leader known for his oratory and personal connect. “Govindan is a Nambiar, and the community has a significant presence in Malapattam, Anthoor and Mayyil, areas that are CPM strongholds,” she said. “We should retain the votes Rasheed brought in, and Govindan can add to them from his areas of influence,” Saraswathi said. "How much he can bring will be known only on the counting day," she said.