The focus of the recently held state committee meeting of the Kerala CPM in Kollam was not on ideology but electoral politics. Polls are due in the CPM’s sole bastion, Kerala, next year. The aim of the Pinarayi Vijayan government is to achieve a hat trick of victories unheard of in the political landscape of Kerala, whose voters generally throw out incumbent governments every five years.
The Left Front government winning back-to-back elections in 2016 and 2021 itself was regarded as a feat. The state committee meeting was an exercise in eulogising chief minister Vijayan, effectively staking his claim for a third term in office. His undisputed sway over the CPM makes it difficult for dissenting voices to be heard.
The CPM leadership, led by its ad hoc general secretary Prakash Karat, who took over after the untimely death of Sitaram Yechury, has no option but to back Vijayan, though some of his decisions are decidedly anti-Marxist, such as an open invitation to private capital in infrastructure, healthcare, and now even education.
The state committee meeting saw Vijayan presenting a report card of his government’s performance, where he defended the deviation in the party line. He cited the progress the state has made over the last nine years and pointed to the need for better physical infrastructure and private investment in education, health, IT, and tourism. The meeting endorsed these decisions while criticising those leaders who were felt to not have adequately backed and defended the CM’s decisions.
The possibility of a CPM hat trick is not far-fetched, as the opposition United Democratic Front, led by the Congress, is in shambles. Factionalism and leadership battles have been the bane of the Congress. Unless the Grand Old Party gets its house in order, the likelihood of the LDF making it to power for a third term appears more and more feasible.
The LDF’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha election came as a surprise because its ‘tactical’ alliance with the BJP was well known. The saffron party was finally able to make a breakthrough in Kerala with Suresh Gopi winning the Thrissur seat.
However, the UDF held its own in the rest of Kerala. Analysts are predicting a good performance by the BJP in the 2026 assembly elections, partly aided by the CPM in a bid to snuff out the UDF’s prospects.
Now it is for the Congress high command to get into the act and crack down on factionalism and internal sabotage in the Kerala unit of the party, which has a plethora of leaders but remains a divided house.
Kerala used to be one of the strongholds of the Congress in the south, with the UDF winning alternate elections there, but the state is slowly slipping away from its hands. A desperate CPM decimated in Bengal and Tripura sees Kerala as its only hope and will do everything in its power to hold on to it, even at the cost of bending its ideological convictions.
