CPM’s Taliparamba area committee rejects ‘communalism’ theory behind defeat

Kannur: The CPM’s post-election review meetings in Kannur are turning into confrontations with the party leadership, with grassroots workers and mid-level leaders openly questioning the explanations being offered for the LDF’s collapse in the Assembly election.

What began as criticism inside the district secretariat and district committee has now spread to area committee meetings. Friday’s Taliparamba Area Committee meeting became particularly significant because the CPM suffered one of its worst defeats there, with P K Shyamala losing heavily to rebel candidate T K Govindan, who was the most senior member of the party’s Kannur district secretariat.

According to sources, members directly blamed the state and district leadership, including CPM Politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, for the defeat and rejected attempts to attribute the loss to “minority communalism” or “strategic BJP voting.”

Several members criticised the decision to field party secretary M V Govindan’s wife, Shyamala, arguing that she lacked public acceptability and that repeated warnings from local workers about an impending defeat were ignored.

Participants also criticised the “body language and political style” of both Govindan and Shyamala, saying it alienated voters and weakened even the functioning of Govindan’s MLA office.

Party district secretary K K Ragesh took the position that the LDF lost because of minority communal consolidation and tactical BJP voting in favour of the UDF.

But Ragesh himself came under severe criticism during the meeting. One member reportedly remarked that appointing “someone who had not even served as a branch secretary” as district secretary had weakened the organisation in Kannur.

The M V Govindan’s much-publicised “Happiness Festival” campaign was also criticised, with members saying it became a subject of ridicule among the public and politically damaged the party.

Some members reportedly argued that the CPM would not recover if Pinarayi Vijayan continued as Leader of the Opposition. Others said the party could have avoided the scale of the defeat had K K Shailaja been projected as the chief ministerial face.

The rebellion within the Kannur unit intensified further after Payyannur MLA and CPM whistleblower V Kunhikannan publicly rejected the communalism argument in a Facebook post.

“The cloak of communalism is being worn to justify the election defeat and protect the leadership,” Kunhikannan wrote. “There is an attempt to evade responsibility instead of correcting mistakes. RSS leaders are the ones welcoming this line.”

He also warned that the party leadership had forgotten that positions were “responsibilities, not centres of power.”

Taliparamba MLA and CPM rebel leader T K Govindan also questioned the leadership’s communal polarisation theory using the party’s own vote figures.

T K Govindan pointed out that M V Govindan had secured 92,870 votes in the 2021 Assembly election in Taliparamba and won by a margin of 22,689 votes. This time, with his wife Shyamala as the candidate, the CPM’s vote fell to 70,181.

“Where did those 22,689 votes go?” he asked.

T K Govindan said the UDF would never have voted for M V Govindan in 2021, meaning the votes lost this time belonged to CPM supporters themselves, not minority voters shifting away because of communal mobilisation.

More confrontations are expected at the Payyannur Area Committee meeting, where similar criticism against the leadership is likely to surface.