The CPI(M) in Kerala is confident of registering impressive victory in majority of the 20 seats in the State in the lok Sabha election for which polling was held on April 10. The State secretariat of the CPI(M) has come to the conclusion that the Opposition lDF it leads will have a clear upper hand over the Congress-led UDF when the results are declared on May 16.
Though the CPI(M) has so far been saying that the left would win 12 to 13 of the 20 seats in the State, the party secretariat does not give a specific number now but is of the opinion that the lDF would bag majority of the seats, including those in which the party candidates had faced tough fights.
Several opinion polls which had predicted the left to suffer a serious setback in the initial stages of campaigning had towards its rend revised their forecast to say that the left might win 12 or 13 seats out of the total 20 in the State. The CPI(M)’s current assessment is almost in agreement with this revised forecast.
As per the assessment of the secretariat, based on the reports on performance of the left at the booth-level, prepared by panels under branch and local committees of the party and analysed by the election committees in constituency-level, the left would win seats like Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Vadakara which had seen the toughest poll battles in the State.
According to the party, the departure of the RSP, a member of the lDF for 35 years, from the front had caused embarrassment, but it had overcome that through carefully coordinated electioneering in Kollam where party Politbureau member MA Bay had faced tough challenge from RSP’s NK Premachandran, whom the UDF had made its candidate.
Another seat the CPI(M) is confident of winning despite tough challenge is Vadakara, where the brutal murder of rebel Marxist leader TP Chandrasekharan — for which the party was blamed — was the biggest poll issue. The party now thinks that its young leader AN Shamseer will defeat Congress candidate Mullappally Ramachandran, Union Minister of State for Home in Vadakara.
“Towards the end of campaigning, the UDF and the Congress, aided by Chandrasekharan’s wife KK Rama, had unleashed a very negative campaign against Shamseer accusing him of direct involvement in the murder. But the voters of Vadakara have proved that they don’t fall for propaganda,” said a former State committee member of the CPI(M).
He admitted that the entry of nonagenarian central committee member VS Achuthanandan, also State Assembly’s Opposition leader, into the campaign scene by coming to an understanding with the party, had helped the left in a big way in this election. “Achuthanandan’s entry into the campaign arena indeed gave a new energy to the grassroots comrades,” he said.
The CPI(M) believes that the left candidates have been able to put up a brilliant performances in constituencies where the party was strong. While observers are seeing the possibility of the left bagging more seats in the northern region, the party thinks that the lDF will prove its upper hand even in southern Kerala.