The Communist Party of India (Marxist) State committee has decided to have the Lok Sabha election results in Kollam, Kozhikode, Alappuzha, Kannur and Kasaragod closely analysed by the respective district committees even as the CPI State council heard trenchant criticism of the party’s Central and State leaderships for flawed candidate selection in Thiruvananthapuram.
Members of the CPI(M) State committee and the CPI State council expressed serious concern about the erosion in the traditional support base, particularly among the majority communities. There was no unanimity on the question whether there was a hardening of minority community votes in favour of the Congress and the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) and the general view was that voting pattern in each of the 20 Lok Sabha constituencies deserved closer scrutiny.
The CPI(M) State committee, which concluded its two-day poll review, came to the conclusion that besides the district committees of the five constituencies in question, the Parliament constituency-level committees should look into the voting behaviour in each Assembly segment. Several of the members were of the view that the party should take a firm stand against communal outfits. Some also raised the question why the party was soft on the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) when it was unsparing when it came to the Congress.
The party leadership came in for criticism for the decision to field Polit Bureau member M.A. Baby in Kollam and A. Vijayaraghavan in Kozhikode and also party State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s unsavoury remarks about RSP candidate N.K. Premachandran. Mr. Vijayan, those holding this view said, should have shown greater restraint. However, in his reply to the discussion on the election review report he had presented to the committee on Thursday, Mr. Vijayan reportedly stood his ground and said given the manner in which the RSP candidate and his party had behaved, he should have used even sterner terms to describe him.
At the CPI council meeting, the members demanded to know what right a leadership, which could not even find a candidate on its own, had to remain at the helm. Many of the Council members were of the view that RSP’s departure had hurt the LDF’s chances in Kollam, Mavelikara and Alappuzha constituencies. The CPI council would conclude on Saturday.
