Differences surface in CPI(M) Keralam leadership about Assembly poll debacle

The debatably ‘dissimilar views’ in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State leadership about the reasons for the Left Democratic Front (LDF)’s Assembly election debacle seemed to surface starkly on Wednesday.

Former Finance Minister and CPI(M) Central Committee member T.M. Thomas Isaac appeared to toe the party Central Committee’s review report that a perception of haughtiness, among other myriad factors, had caused the public to fall out with the LDF. 

Laying the foundation stone for the CPI(M) local committee office in Alappuzha, Dr. Isaac said the party leadership felt they were the “true believers” and others, “doubters and deniers”. 

Dr. Isaac said the CPI(M)’s attitude that the party was always right, that so-called apostates were free to leave the party fold, and that the organisation would be better off without sceptics was self-defeating. 

Dr. Isaac said the CPI(M) should be humble and receptive to public opinion, even if what the people regard as true might not always be correct. He said the party was the victim of a massive distortion campaign orchestrated by the expansive anti-communist camp. “The anti-Left cabal successfully convinced the electorate that the CPI(M) had struck a deal with the Bharatiya Janata Party,” he added. 

Dr. Isaac said the electorate had not forsaken the CPI(M). “The people have given the party a shock. The rude awakening should provide impetus to the rank and file to correct course as part of a wider rectification process,” he said. He added that the CPI(M) had erred in candidate selection. 

Dr. Isaac’s reiteration of the party’s Central Committee line seemed to assume profound political significance ahead of the CPI(M) State Committe next week and the extended State Committee meeting for organisational course correction in Kozhikode on September 13. 

Moreover, it appeared to contrast sharply with the position espoused by Leader of the Opposition and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan at recent public meetings in Payyannur and Taliparamba in Kannur. Mr. Vijayan had blamed betrayal, internal sabotage, and party workers’ susceptibility to propaganda for the debacle in these strongholds and elsewhere in the State. 

Mr. Vijayan also seemed to give the go-by to the CPI(M) Central Committee’s finding that “personalising the (poll) campaign and centring it solely around the former Chief Minister, lack of political oversight by party committees on governance and policy matters, along with the public perception of high-handed governance contributed to the LDF’s failure.”

The back-to-back speeches had triggered intra-party criticism that the CPI(M)’s Keralam leadership was shirking accountability and shifting the blame for the failure to rebels.