Kannur: After rebelling at the ballot box and helping defeat CPM candidates in some party citadels, sections of the CPM cadre in Kannur appear unwilling to stop there. The anger has now shifted onto the party leadership itself, particularly thr party's state secretary M V Govindan and Kannur district secretary K K Ragesh.

From posters pasted in Anthoor municipality demanding their resignation to thousands of comments flooding their Facebook posts, the message from many ordinary workers and sympathisers is clear: the leadership must change.

What is striking is that much of the criticism is not anonymous. Commenters use their actual names, identifying themselves as long-time party workers. The criticism also, is unusually direct for the CPM, known for organisational discipline.

“The government did what it had to do. But did the party do what it was supposed to do? Kannur has suffered a defeat unlike anything it has ever seen before,” wrote Sajith Kumar, an optics businessman from Kannur, under a post of K K Ragesh, where he said the party would make a course correction. 

“A member of the district secretariat left the party and contested for the UDF. Another comrade from the district committee contested and defeated the party. Shouldn’t the district secretary, who failed to see all this happening, be the first to step down?” he added. 

The anger has been building since the candidate selection process, particularly in Taliparamba, where the decision to field Govindan’s wife P K Shyamala triggered resentment, with former district secretariat member T K Govindan quitting the party and contesting with UDF backing. He eventually defeated Shyamala by 12,551 votes in what was long considered one of CPM’s safest constituencies. 

In Payyannur, another CPM rebel, V Kunhikrishnan, defeated the official party candidate, while the winning margins in Azhikode, Mattannur, Dharmadam and Kuthuparamba plummeted. Party workers point to those defeats as evidence of a widening disconnect between the leadership and the cadre base.

“Cadres did not abandon T K Govindan and Kunhikrishnan because they were necessarily right; they abandoned you because you were wrong,” wrote Gireesan Ottappurakkal from Kannur.

The demand for a leadership overhaul also has some names repeatedly invoked as alternatives, including those of M Swaraj and P Jayarajan.

“Let M Swaraj become the secretary. Comrade (M V Govindan), for the time being, please stay at home,” wrote Vipin Vijay from Chirayinkeezhu in Thiruvananthapuram, where the CPM suffered a major setback.

Others demanded that figures such as P Sasi, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s political secretary, be kept away from the party leadership altogether. 

“P Sasi should not be allowed anywhere near the party. What obligation does the party have towards him, other than the fact that he is Pinarayi’s favourite?” asked Shiju Keezhur, from Iritty now working in Abu Dhabi. “The only reason for the rout is anti-party sentiments,” he wrote on Facebook, adding that the Kannur district secretary post should go to A N Shamseer and P Jayarajan should be the state secretary. 

Another commenter, Manoj G Parakode, a higher secondary school teacher from Adoor, wrote: “Kerala has always had Left-minded people. But for quite some time now, the wrong direction taken by the party leadership has been alienating the public.”

The criticism is not confined to Kannur alone. Comments demanding course correction, humility and accountability have appeared from Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad, Kottayam, Pathanamthitta and Kasaragod as well. Under M V Govindan’s Facebook post after the defeat, where he assured course correction, nearly 6,000 comments had appeared by Wednesday.

“Then why is it that even after trying to correct themselves, West Bengal and Tripura have not returned to power?” asked Shahul Ottayil Puthuponnani. “First become communists with humility. Leave behind the communism of arrogance.”

Several commenters also pointed to what they described as the ‘Kannur lobby’ controlling the party. “By the time of the next Assembly election, it would greatly benefit the party in the long term if the Kerala unit of the CPM undergoes a constructive leadership change instead of continuing under Pinarayi’s leadership,” wrote Sunil Narayanan from Payyannur. “The first thing that must be done is to remove from the minds of party workers the perception that there exists a ‘Kannur lobby’ controlling the party from within.”

The criticism has gone beyond social media as well. In the Anthoor municipality, posters appeared demanding the resignation of both M V Govindan and Ragesh. Put up in the name of ‘Morazha Sakhakkal’ (Comrades of Morazha, Govindan's home ward), the posters accused the leadership of bringing disrepute to the party and called for both leaders to step down. Party workers removed the posters soon after they appeared.

Yet amid the growing calls for leadership change, Payyannur MLA-elect V Kunhikrishnan offered a word of caution. “The problem facing the party will not be resolved by just changing the secretary,” he said.

“Secretary is not the threat. Who is controlling the party? Why are others not able to question the opinions of the leadership?” he argued, stating that the crisis ran far deeper than an individual leader. 

He also questioned the party’s willingness to act against leaders accused of wrongdoing. “Those who made mistakes should be punished; that is the basic tenet of justice. Instead of punishing them, if steps are being taken to protect them, what course correction are the leaders talking about?”