Months after the crushing debacle in the assembly elections, the top leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI[M]) gathered in Kozhikode for the three-day extended state committee meeting on Sunday, vowing to fix its organisational lapses identified through multi-tier internal reviews.
Paloli Muhammad Kutty, its senior-most leader, hoisted the party flag, while general secretary MA Baby delivered the inaugural address.
Consequently, we have lost the political initiative to expose the reactionary, ruling class bias of the Congress and the UDF,” it had said. The extended state committee meeting of the party is being keenly watched over whether former chief minister and current leader of opposition Pinarayi Vijayan and his close confidante Govindan will come under fire from their colleagues over the style and manner in which the party’s campaign was led during the elections. A report prepared by the central committee in July had admitted that the campaign was increasingly personalised and centered around Vijayan. “…we unwittingly gave an opportunity to the UDF to conduct a targeted campaign against him. The same report had admitted that reading out a message from Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath at a Sabarimala event “was a major embarassment to the party’s secular image and had an adverse impact on our election campaign.
Specifically, the party’s humbling defeats in its strongholds of Payyannur and Taliparamba, both in Kannur district, due to the choice of candidates have been intensely discussed.
It said that the party could not issue strong responses to the anti-Muslim utterances of SNDP chief Vellappally Natesan. A draft report prepared by the state secretariat on the review of the Assembly election defeat, held at multiple levels of the party, was presented at the meeting in Kozhikode on Sunday, with the floor later thrown open for debate among party leaders. The debate will extend till Monday night, followed by a public rally in the city on Tuesday. CPI(M) state secretary MV Govindan told reporters on Sunday that the party has identified weaknesses and lapses during organisational reviews, held from branch level to state level, and that it intends to fix them as part of internal reforms.
