Even as the elevation of senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) leader and party Polit Bureau member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan as the party’s new State secretary will be viewed as an assertion of the continuity of the dominance of the party’s Kannur establishment in the CPI(M)’s affairs in the State, his good rapport with even his political adversaries kindles hopes of positive impact in this district, viewed as hotbed of political violence.
The new CPI(M) chief in the State is seen as no less a product of the hardened political arena of this district than the incumbent. Given the sway the CPI(M) leaders from the district enjoy in the party leadership in the State, the successor to the incumbent Pinarayi Vijayan as the party State secretary could not have been anyone else. The mantle to lead the CPI(M) in the State has fallen on Mr. Balakrishnan, hailing from the CPI(M) stronghold of Kodiyeri, which is not far from Pinarayi, the native place of Mr. Vijayan, another pocket borough of the party.
For both CPI(M) cadres and political workers in other parties, Mr. Balakrishnan is cut from the same political cloth as Mr. Vijayan.
ADVERTISEMENT
As most of the CPI(M) leaders from the district, Mr. Balakrishnan has been shaped by a confrontational political style of leaders from the district. However, Mr. Balakrishnan is seen by many as more accessible and sociable.
“Kodiyeri (as Mr. Balakrishnan is popularly known) is always approachable as a leader and he is amiable even to workers and leaders of rival parties,” says a former Congress functionary from Thalassery.
ADVERTISEMENT
Even as he is seen as hard-nosed CPI(M) leader from the district, Mr. Balakrishnan’s affability is often disarming to leaders in the rival parties, he adds.
Former Home Minister in the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) Ministry and currently serving MLA representing the Thalassery constituency, the 62-year-old leader began his political career as a student leader of the Students Federation of India. His very entry into politics coincided with the inception of the Students Federation of India (SFI) in 1970 when he was studying in the Mahatma Gandhi College in Mahe and was elected as chairman of the students’ union in the college.
Three years later he was elevated to the post of State secretary of the SFI, a post he continued to hold till 1979. He had also served as district secretary of the CPI(M)’s youth wing, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI).
His image as a ‘smiling communist’ has stood him in good stead in his electoral battles ever since his first win in the Thalassery constituency in 1982, a couple of years after he spent over a year in jail during Emergency.
After his repeat victory in the same constituency in 1987, he fought and won the electoral battle from the constituency in 2001, 2006 and 2011.
Kodiyeri Balakrishnan is seen as a hard-nosed leader, yet always amiable and approachable.