Thiruvananthapuram, May 17 (Inditop) The electoral mauling of Kerala’s ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), in particular major partner the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), has cast gloom over the alliance, but the writing was on the wall for some time.
The opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) swept the Lok Sabha polls in the state, winning 16 of 20 seats. The LDF had 19 seats in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
An analysis of the results shows that the UDF won in 102 of the 140 assembly segments, further highlighting the LDF’s poor showing.
The frequent squabbles in the CPI-M – between the majority faction led by state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and the other faction, which is now left virtually with only Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan – caused major hiccups in the party on numerous occasions since the LDF assumed power in May 2006.
Adding to the troubles, was the big brother attitude of CPI-M towards its allies, especially when it came to seat distribution for the Rajya Sabha or the Lok Sabha elections.
Even the Communist Party of India (CPI), the second biggest ally of the LDF, found the going tough. CPI party state secretary Veliyam Bharghavan reacted with anger when told by the CPI-M ahead of the election that it would not get the regular quota of seats. A piqued Bharghavan went to the extent of saying that the LDF no longer exists.
To top it, the Vijayan faction alienated its Janata Dal-Secular partner over seat sharing. M.P. Veerendra Kumar, one of the founding leaders of the LDF in 1980 and now chief of the state Janata Dal-Secular, was refused the Kozhikode Lok Sabha seat, which he had contested for long and was the MP in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
After its request was turned down, a miffed JD-S walked out of a LDF meeting last month and its leaders said that they had been thrown out of the alliance.
With the LDF partners already unhappy, what came as a further shock was when the Vijayan faction took on board Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Abdul Nazir Maudany, a former accused in the 1998 Coimbatore serial blasts, for the election campaign.
Since his acquittal in 2007 in the Coimbatore bomb blast case, Maudany has been a strong supporter of the Vijayan faction, much against the wishes of the allies.
After the Lok Sabha results came out Saturday, Achuthanandan stated that the poll debacle had nothing to do with his governance and the reasons for the poor showing would be found out when the party committees – politburo as well as state committee – meet this week.
Surprisingly, neither Vijayan nor his aides have come out with any explanation for one of the worst poll reversals suffered by the party.
Maybe it is time for the CPI-M to think beyond Achuthanandan and Vijayan, at least for now.
rounak