Left bleeding in Kerala, CPI(M) is struggling to reinvent its mojo

The Indian Communist movement enters its centenary next year. The country’s largest opposition at the time of Independence, it is now at its weakest point in India’s parliamentary history.

The past two decades have witnessed the Communists’ worst electoral performance.

The Left parties’ combined strength in the Lok Sabha crashed from a record 59 seats in 2004 to eight in 2024. The period also saw the Left losing two of the three states where it held sway for decades.

Kerala stands out – now

The only silver lining in the Left’s dark era is Kerala, which made history in 1957 by becoming the first Indian state to vote a Communist party to power.

Also read | Kerala: Seeing red after poll rout, CPI(M) starts rectification drive

Communists returned to power many times more in the state over the past 67 years and were elected successively for the first time in 2021. According to a recent study, Kerala remains the sole Red bastion because the state’s Left could reinvent itself with time in multiple ways, unlike their comrades in the other states where they sank.

But what lies ahead? Will the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) retain power for a third time in a row in 2026?

Two prospects

This assumes special significance for two reasons. One, as mentioned above, if it loses Kerala too, India will nearly become a Left-mukt (Left-free) country, at least electorally.

Secondly, the next election may also lead Kerala to lose its pole position as the BJP's most inaccessible state, where it now has no presence in the 140-member legislature. Both prospects are possible.

The present state government’s image has never been worse, resulting in its drubbing in the May Lok Sabha elections. The BJP, on the other hand, looks ascendant, winning its first-ever Lok Sabha seat in Thrissur, a citadel of the Left and also the Congress for long. Its film star politician Suresh Gopi made a stunning win, beating both the CPI and the Congress.

BJP’s rising vote share

Though the BJP won only one of the state’s 20 seats, its total votes rose to a record 19.23 per cent, and it came first in 11 Assembly segments. The rest of the results were an encore of 2019, with the United Democratic Front (UDF) grabbing 18 seats and the LDF left with just one.

Though the LDF subsequently admitted to the gravity of its rout, it was quick to present the oft-repeated argument that the UDF traditionally won often in the Lok Sabha, which was not repeated in the Assembly polls.

Also read: Left diminished in Bengal, Communist parties go for self-introspection

It proudly cited the 2021 Assembly battle, which the LDF not only swept but, for the first time, got elected a second time successively. This was barely two years after its debacle in the Lok Sabha polls.

Left’s weak points

True. Yet, the Left avoided seeing three counter-points.

1. Despite a history of poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections, the LDF has never been consecutively defeated so heavily.

2. The LDF’s defeat in 2019 was in the face of a huge anti-Left wave created by the Sabarimala movement led separately by the UDF and the BJP. The emotionally charged movement was against the LDF government’s decision to implement the 2018 Supreme Court verdict scrapping the ban on women’s entry to the Sabarimala shrine. But its debacle in 2024 was without any such specific negative factors.

3. The LDF’s big win in 2021 was in the immediate aftermath of Covid-19, which the government managed reasonably well and helped it win electoral dividends. It is also true that people often repose faith in their governments during calamities.

Anti-incumbency sweeps Kerala

The circumstances are quite different now. More than traditional voter behaviour, the recent drubbing points to a solid anti-incumbency wave.

Never before has an LDF government been embroiled in so many ugly controversies. They range from severe charges of graft in which, for the first time, the family of a Communist Chief Minister is allegedly involved.

The Home Ministry led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has faced the worst flak. Violent police repression against political protests, encounter-killings of Maoists, wanton use of oppressive Central laws like the UAPA, involvement in criminal offences like rape, smuggling and even murder, and their unabashed endorsement by Pinarayi have turned hostile even traditional Left supporters.

The allegations have severely damaged the image of the CPI(M) and the government, already throttled by grave financial difficulties.

Growing Muslim discontent

However, the most unprecedented and serious charge against the CPI(M), particularly Pinarayi, is the alleged secret deals with the Left’s sworn enemy, the BJP.

Besides challenging the CPI(M)’s secular credentials, this could jeopardise its recent inroads into the Muslim community, which forms 28 per cent of the population and traditionally backs the Muslim League of the UDF. The CPI(M) State Committee, in its analysis of the last Lok Sabha results, has admitted its abject failure to attract minority votes.

Also read: Ground Report | Will Anvar's rebellion cost LDF Muslim support in Malabar region?

At the core of the alleged CPI(M)-BJP ties is Pinarayi's closeness to MR Ajith Kumar, the additional director general of police (ADGP), who is allegedly close to the Sangh Parivar besides being accused of grave lapses even by LDF constituents.

Thanks to the Chief Minister’s support, Kumar, though Number 2 in the state police, reigns over the force.

Anvar’s revolt against Vijayan

PV Anvar, a CPI(M)-backed independent legislator, opened a can of worms by alleging criminal misconduct including murder and gold smuggling against the ADGP, who he said was protected by P Sasi, the Chief Minister’s political secretary.

Though the CM flatly dismissed charges against Sasi, a CPI (M) State Committee member, he directed the director general of police (DGP) to probe certain allegations against the ADGP.

Also read: Interview | CPM leader MA Baby: 'Anvar can only create a temporary smokescreen'

However, when the preliminary probe found the ADGP suspect, Pinarayi directed a more detailed investigation but refused to relieve him from his critical responsibilities. Even demands by LDF constituents like the CPI and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to keep out the police officer were ignored. Though many in CPI (M) also secretly endorse Anvar’s charges, the CM and the party leadership have disowned him.

Police officer-RSS links

Anvar has now turned the guns against Vijayan, saying he is shielding the ADGP. Pinarayi refused to budge even after the ADGP’s meetings with RSS leaders Dattatreya Hosabele and Ram Madhav came to light.

Another charge raised by not just the UDF but even the CPI is that the ADGP led the police to sabotage the famed Pooram temple festival of Thrissur this April.

According to them, this turned popular sentiment against the government and facilitated the BJP’s electoral victory in Thrissur the following month. Under pressure from the CPI and RJD, the state cabinet has now ordered a second investigation into the ADGP’s alleged attempts to sabotage the festival. Yet, Pinarayi hasn’t touched the ADGP.

The Congress-led UDF has used this to buttress its charges about the Chief Minister’s alleged ties with the BJP. It wonders aloud why Pinarayi and his family remain untouched by central security agencies despite their ongoing investigations against them, unlike what happened to other leaders opposed to the BJP. It says the ADGP was Pinarayi's emissary to RSS leaders to offer the Thrissur Lok Sabha a seat in return for clemency in his cases.

Pinarayi's flip-flop over Muslims

A month ago, the CPI(M) removed its central committee member EP Jayarajan as convenor of the LDF coordination committee for meeting with Prakash Javadekar, the BJP secretary in charge of Kerala.

The latest controversy is over the Chief Minister’s references in an interview with The Hindu to the Muslim-dominated Malappuram district as a criminal haven. Following the charges that they echoed BJP’s anti-Muslim propaganda, he said he had never made such comments.

After protests from the Chief Minister’s Office, The Hindu published an apology, stating that the interview and the reported comments were included at the behest of a public relations agency.

Watch: Interview fallout | Pinarayi Vijayan denies PR ties

The UDF asked why an agency, which the BJP earlier engaged in Maharashtra, was hired by Pinarayi. Though many charges remain unproven, neither the CM nor the CPI(M) has given convincing explanations.

Will Kerala go Bengal way?

The Left faces the next Assembly elections when Pinarayi will be 81 and may give way to a successor. Though the immediate beneficiary may still be the UDF if the LDF loses, it will open further doors for the BJP and hasten the end of Kerala’s bipolar secularism.

It may also lead to the marginalisation of the Left, with the BJP expanding its sway over the Hindus and minorities aligning more with the UDF. This could lead to what happened in West Bengal, where the Left’s failures led to its marginalisation and dominance of the Trinamool Congress and the BJP.

Ironically, in Kerala, the primary onus for such a situation will lie with the country’s most secular political formation, the Left, which failed to perform or correct its mistakes. Within the Left, the onus will be mainly on Pinarayi, whose formidable rise in the past two decades in the CPI(M) has killed internal democracy in the organisation, which is the root cause of all that’s wrong with the party and the government.

None before Pinarayi has led the party and the government for so long.

Rise and rise of Pinarayi

Pinarayi Vijayan was the longest-serving CPI(M) state secretary, from 1998 to 2016, after which he became the chief minister twice, where he would complete an unbroken 10 years in 2026.

The decade-long, intense factionalism inside the party and the eventual decimation of his fierce critic VS Achuthanandan by the iron-fisted Pinarayi helped him capture the party. This paved the way for the concentration of powers in Pinarayi while Achuthanandan, 99, lies bedridden.

The factional war saw the party committees, which once were powerful course-correcting bodies, filled only with members of the winning camp and rendered subservient to the leader. Even the 89-member state committee hears no dissent or criticism. The office of CPI(M) state secretary, now held by MV Govindan, which once was more potent than the chief minister, has been tamed.

No voice is heard against Big Brother, even from the CPI, after the passing of influential leaders who stood up to the CPI(M).

End of internal democracy

The CPI(M)’s retreat at the all-India level, driving its national party status to the brink and the advance of the Kerala unit as the only winner (and breadwinner too) during the same period, made even its highest body, the Politburo, submissive to the state party and its supreme leader.

No significant corrections were initiated even after major setbacks. Once known for keeping even legendary leaders like EMS Namboodiripad and Jyoti Basu on their toes, the internal checks and balances have almost vanished within the party.

Also read: It is time for India's communist parties to reinvent or perish

The fate that awaits every organisation where democracy retreats and powers centralised in a supreme leader is all too familiar in history.

An uncertain future

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the article are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal.)