Lok Sabha polls | Left leaders in Mahe will not extend support to Congress candidate for Puducherry

Communist leaders in Mahe, an enclave of the Union Territory, said they could not support the Congress’s V. Vaithilingam, as they were part of the Kerala unit of Left parties, where the Congress and the Left are at loggerheads

Congress candidate V. Vaithilingam, participated in a Lok Sabha election meeting at the CPI office in Puducherry recently | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The bitter political fight between Congress and the Left in Kerala has cast its shadow on the political landscape of the Union Territory’s enclave of Mahe, situated close to Kerala’s Kannur and Kozhikode districts.

Cadres of the Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Mahe and are not on the same page with their counterparts in the rest of the Union Territory, when it comes to extending support to Congress candidate V. Vaithilingam for the Puducherry Lok Sabha seat.

The Congress is contesting in Puducherry, as part of the DMK’s alliance in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, under the INDIA bloc.

While the leaders of CPI and CPI (M) in Puducherry are vigorously campaigning for Mr. Vaithilingam, their Left counterparts in Mahe have decided to abstain from the campaign and have, in fact, decided to vote for an Independent.

According to a senior functionary of the CPI (M) in Mahe, the party’s local unit has already communicated to the party leadership in Puducherry that workers will not be campaigning or voting for Mr. Vaithilingam. 

“We are attached to the party’s Kannur district secretariat. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls also, we did not work for Mr. Vaithilingam instead we voted for Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam. This time too , we cannot openly campaign for the candidate as it will dilute our fight with the Congress in the neighbouring districts of Kerala. As of now, we have decided to support an Independent,” he said.

In the recent times, comrades of Puducherry and Mahe have only voted in unison during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when CPI’s R. Viswanathan contested the Parliamentary elections on a party ticket . Of the around 16,000 votes Mr. Viswanathan garnered, around 6, 000 came from Mahe, said a party leader.

‘Anti-BJP votes must not get split’

CPI (M) secretary R. Rajangam told The Hindu that the party leadership was aware of the situation in Mahe. The party leadership was working out ways to see that anti-BJP votes do not get split, he added.

Echoing similar sentiments, CPI secretary A. M. Saleem said nothing should be done to impact the cohesiveness of the alliance. The CPI’s fight, he said, was against the BJP in Puducherry. The party, he said, would try to prevail upon the Mahe unit to vote in favour of Mr Vaithilingam, he added. 

“It is an interesting political situation. We started working with Congress in Puducherry and Tamil Nadu after the rise of right-wing politics in the country. The understanding between us and the Congress was part of the broad alliance in Tamil Nadu against right-wing politics. Mahe, though in Puducherry, is under the supervision of the CPI Kerala unit and there, the political fight is between us and the Congress,” said a Left supporter in Puducherry.