This time, the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) misses its star campaigner, T.P. Chandrasekharan, as electioneering for the local bodies poll picks up momentum in Kozhikode.
The CPI(M) rebel who walked out of the party to form the RMP was hacked to death by a hired gang at Onchiyam on May 4, 2012. “Yes, we miss him. But that does not mean our party workers are dejected. His ideology is our strength. The party’s campaign is in full flow,” says K.K. Rema, his wife.
In previous elections, the RMP was confined to the Onchiyam area that comprised the grama panchayats of Onchiyam, Eramala, Chorode, and Azhiyur.
The party had then captured the Onchiyam grama panchayat and it had members at Eramala, Chorode, and Azhiyur. TP, as he was known, spearheaded the campaign in 2010.
Alliance
Today the RMP has put up either its own candidates or have forged alliances with others in the State. “We have candidates in 18 grama panchayats in Kozhikode, at Vadakara and Payyoli municipalities, besides, Kozhikode, Kannur, and Thrissur Corporations,” said Ms. Rema, who is also the State secretariat member of the RMP.
The campaigning led by Chandrasekharan had seen RMP trouncing the CPI(M) to third position in its once unassailed bastions such as Eramala, Azhiyur, and Chorode grama panchayats.
TP had left the CPI(M) and formed the RMP in June 2008 when the party decided to hand over the president’s position of the Eramala grama panchayat to Janata Dal (S).
A majority of the cadre and local leaders of the CPI(M) at Onchiyam followed TP into the then new party.
