On the day the CPM Politburo began its post-election analysis in New Delhi, the CPI state secretary Binoy Viswam has aggressively articulated his party's claim to the deputy leader of the opposition post. 

“Certain precedents have to change,” Viswam said in Delhi on Sunday, referring to the practice of the CPM holding both the opposition leader and deputy parliamentary leader posts. “It is not mandatory that both the posts should be held by one party. This should change. It will,” Viswam said. The CPI state secretary was in Delhi to attend the CPI National Council meeting. 

Last time when the CPM was in the opposition, from 2011 to 2016, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was deputy to opposition leader V S Achuthanandan. 

A senior CPI leader said that Viswam's was a “preemptive strike”. “We have a hunch that the CPM would nominate Pinarayi Vijayan as the opposition leader. Such a decision would suggest that the LDF is unwilling to make amends and would be seen in the public eye as a mockery of the people's mandate. We will not let that happen,” the leader said.

Therefore, the deputy leader's post is a bargaining chip. If the CPM insists on retaining Pinarayi, the CPI will bargain hard for the deputy post knowing fully well that the CPM has historically resisted sharing legislative control while in the opposition. 

The CPI will perhaps let go of its demand if another CPM MLA, preferably someone like K N Balagopal who is not fully identified with Pinarayi like Mohammad Riyas, is picked as the opposition leader.

If a younger leader is made the opposition leader, the CPI knows that the likelihood of it getting the deputy post also increases. “Kodiyeri was made the deputy because it was important for a senior but a relatively younger leader to assist V S Achuthanandan, who had by then developed health issues. During that period, it was Kodiyeri who did all the show of aggression. Achuthanandan just made some prepared speeches,” the CPI source said.

“Given his age, Pinarayi also cannot be expected to take on the ruling side in the House on a daily basis like Satheesan so successfully did. He would need someone younger to stand in for him, at least occasionally. If a younger person like Balagopal is the opposition leader, there is no need for such a proxy. The CPI can easily have the deputy post,” the leader said.

However, for the CPI, the most important thing is to disengage the LDF from its links to the Pinarayi dispensation. The message is being conveyed in stern but subtle ways.

The CPI state secretary, for the first time, has publicly criticised the manner in which the Pinarayi government handled the protest of ASHA workers. 

“There is a certain approach that an LDF government has to adopt when dealing with something like the protest of ASHA workers. It should not be like that of a right-wing government. The Left should not be dismissive and contemptuous of working-class struggles. Such a thing has happened, and it has alienated our partners, groups that should have been our partners, from us,” Viswam said.

This is a veiled warning to the CPM Politburo that persisting with Pinarayi would only help to further nourish the public bitterness that nearly obliterated the LDF in the elections. The CPI wants a clean break from the past defined by Pinarayi's actions.

“Now that we have lost, it is time for the LDF to recast its image. How can it be done if Pinarayi returns as opposition leader,” the CPI leader asks.