In the run-up to the Kerala assembly polls, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is facing the challenge of having to encounter rebels in four of its key strongholds in the state along with possible anti-incumbency on account of having been in power for the past decade. CPI(M)’s Kerala assembly polls bid faces challenges amid rebellion, anti-incumbency
Though largely viewed as a party with disciplined cadres who rarely step out of line, this time, four leaders from within the CPI(M)’s ranks, including the one who had a six decades of association with the party, are challenging both the organisation and its leadership on grounds including nepotism, financial misappropriation and loss of idealism. G Sudhakaran in Ambalappuzha, V Kunhikrishnan in Payyanur, TK Govindan in Taliparamba and PK Sasi in Ottapalam are the rebel CPI(M) leaders who filed their candidacy as Independents, backed by the the Congress-led UDF.
The biggest challenge is in Ambalappuzha, a constituency in Alappuzha district, where Sudhakaran, a former two-time minister, four-time MLA and CPI(M) state committee member, is up against sitting CPI(M) MLA H Salam and BJP’s Arun Anirudhan. Earlier this month, he declined to renew his membership within the party, alleging that he felt “insulted and neglected.” Disciplinary action had been taken by the CPI(M) leadership against Sudhakaran on grounds that he worked against the party candidate in Ambalappuzha during the 2021 elections, an allegations the veteran leader declined.
In the 15 elections held in Ambalappuzha since 1967, the Left party and its allies have won 12 times while the opposition Congress won three times, last in 2001. The UDF believes its support to Sudhakaran as Independent will consolidate anti-CPI(M) votes and erode a section of the party’s core voter base.
Two of the rebels – V Kunhikrishnan and TK Govindan – are in the electoral fray in Payyanur and Taliparamba constituencies respectively – in Kannur district, the stronghold of the CPI(M) in north Kerala. The party has been undefeated in Payyanur, while it has lost only once in Taliparamba since 1967.
Kunhikrishnan, a district committee member of the party in Kannur, came out in public in January this year alleging that several leaders, including sitting MLA TI Madhusoodanan, embezzled party funds collected for the family of a martyr and for constructing an area committee office in Payyanur. The CPI(M) hit back, saying all the collected funds were properly accounted and audited.
“I have no other choice, but to fight as Independent. This is a fight against corruption,” Kunhikrishnan told reporters on March 16. But the constituency’s arithmetic is not on Kunhikrishnan’s side. In the 2021 elections, the CPI(M) candidate won by over 49,000 votes.
In Taliparamba, TK Govindan, a district secretariat member of CPI(M), has entered the electoral fray by protesting against the party’s decision to field PK Shyamala, a senior leader and wife of party state secretary MV Govindan, also the sitting MLA from the constituency. The MLA chose to sit out of the electoral race due to his organisational commitments. TK Govindan claimed that Shyamala, the former chairperson of Anthoor municipality and a senior leader of the party’s women’s wing, was not the preferred choice among a majority of district party leaders and that their voices were overlooked.
Govindan’s candidature has been supported by the UDF in the hope of breaking into a CPI(M) bastion.
The fourth rebel is PK Sasi, a former district committee leader of the party, in Ottapalam constituency in Palakkad district, where the CPI(M) won 10 of the 12 seats in the 2021 assembly elections. Sasi, a former MLA from Shornur, had been keeping a distance from party affairs for the past eight years after he was suspended temporarily in 2018 for misbehaving with a woman member of the party. His attendance at a meeting of CPI(M) rebels in March forced the party to expel him from primary membership.
Though Sasi was slated to join the Congress and contest polls under the party, the UDF eventually decided to back him as an Independent in Ottapalam, a constituency where a Congress MLA was last elected in 1987. Sasi now faces sitting CPI(M) MLA K Premkumar and BJP’s Major Ravi.
J Prabhash, former political science professor at Kerala University, said this was the first time in history that so many top leaders of the CPI(M) are rebelling against the party in an assembly election.
“The candidature of the rebels and the support extended by the UDF will certainly affect the CPI(M) in these seats and beyond. They may be party strongholds, but if there are winds of heavy anti-incumbency, 2 or 3 of them could even win. Beyond these seats, there is a section of Left sympathisers who feel that the LDF government should not return at any cost. They will be inspired by the rebels to vote against the party,” Prabhash told HT.
“There is a feeling that all decisions in the party are taken by a select few and there is anger among cadres against that. So all the issues (of misuse of party funds and nepotism) will instil confidence among the cadres to vote against the government,” he added.