Signalling that the party will adopt a realpolitik stand in seat-sharing process in the Assembly polls, the CPI(M) has refused to offer any standing committee chairperson post to its minor partner the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the Kozhikode district panchayat.
In the elections held to posts of standing committee chairpersons, NCP district president Mukkom Mohammed, who is also incidentally the convener of the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), was not considered. The CPI (M) district leadership had adopted the same stand when it came to sharing the electoral pie in the Kozhikode corporation council earlier.
Mr. Mohammed had won from the Ulliyeri division on the LDF platform. In the 27-member council, the Left front has 18 representatives. Last time, Mr. Mohammed was a chairperson of one of the standing committees in the district panchayat.
The CPI(M) district leadership said that the post of chairperson was denied to the NCP considering the fact that the party would possibly leave the LDF if its Central leadership decided so.
Tenure sharing
However, the party decided to share the tenure of one of the chairpersons (Standing Committee on Education) between the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD).
In the polls held to the posts of standing committee chairpersons on Monday, Mr. Mohammed also was conspicuous by his absence. Mr. Mohammed said he stayed away as he had to attend a party meeting in Thiruvananthapuram.
Already, a section of the CPI(M) leaders has mooted fielding the party’s candidate in Elathur Assembly segment from where NCP leader A.K. Saseendran contested and won in 2011 and 2016 elections.
Elathur segment, carved out from other segments after delimitation a decade ago, is one of the CPI(M) bastions in the district.
‘No clear base’
The CPI (M) leadership also believes that the NCP has no clear base in the district. Besides, the vote share of Mr. Saseendran had also declined in the last Assembly elections. Sharing a sure seat to constituents with no credible foundation would weaken the party’s vote base, it said.
In the Lok Sabha polls held in 2019, Congress leader M.K. Raghavan was ahead of his CPI(M) rival A. Pradeepkumar in the segment.
However, in the recently concluded local body polls, the LDF secured 74,798 votes while the UDF got 64,132 votes.
