The CPM's attempt to introspect and correct mistakes following its defeat in the Kerala Assembly election has drawn a sharp response from former party veteran and Independent MLA G Sudhakaran, who questioned whether the leadership had properly identified the reasons for its setback.
Sudhakaran's remarks came after CPM general secretary MA Baby, addressing the party's expanded state committee meeting in Kozhikode, urged cadres to openly discuss shortcomings, identify mistakes and reconnect with people following the Left's electoral defeat after a decade in power.
Speaking to a Malayalam news outlet, Sudhakaran said the CPM had undertaken course-correction exercises in the past, but questioned their effectiveness.
"The CPM has made corrections before, but the party is going downhill again," Sudhakaran said.
Pointing to the CPM's decline in states where it once wielded considerable political influence, Sudhakaran said the party had lost West Bengal and Tripura while managing to retain its position in Kerala for a longer period.
"Despite losing Bengal and Tripura, it held on in Kerala. Who knows what will happen in the next elections?" he said.
Sudhakaran also questioned what exactly the CPM proposed to correct through its latest exercise.
"No one knows what is going to be corrected," he said, arguing that the reasons behind the party's electoral setback had not been properly investigated.
His comments come at a politically sensitive moment for the CPM as its Kerala leadership attempts to assess the reasons for its Assembly election defeat and chart a strategy for rebuilding the organisation.
At the Kozhikode meeting, Baby acknowledged that the party had suffered a serious setback and said shortcomings within the organisation had contributed to it.
Baby told cadres that criticism and self-criticism should take place without fear within party forums. He said the leadership should listen to criticism, including from the public and the media, and correct genuine mistakes.
Baby also acknowledged a disconnect with sections of the electorate, asking party workers to examine whether their conduct was bringing people closer to the CPM or pushing them away.
He said the party needed to communicate with people in a language they understood, listen to their concerns and remove the mistrust that had developed among certain sections of society.
However, Baby also argued that the CPM's defeat could not be viewed solely through the prism of its own shortcomings. He alleged that a planned campaign had helped create a negative perception about the party ahead of the election and said the organisation had failed to adequately identify and counter it.
Baby rejected suggestions that the setback marked the beginning of the end of the Communist movement in Kerala. He pointed to the Left's contribution to land reforms, education and welfare programmes and said the CPM had recovered from major political setbacks in the past.
Sudhakaran's intervention, however, directly raises questions over the party's latest introspection exercise, particularly whether the CPM has diagnosed the reasons for its defeat before embarking on another round of organisational corrections.
The former CPM veteran's reference to West Bengal and Tripura also adds a larger warning to the debate within the party: Kerala had remained the CPM's principal political stronghold even after the Left lost power in states it once dominated.
With the CPM now out of power in Kerala after 10 years, the debate within and around the party is increasingly centred not merely on whether corrections are necessary, but on whether the leadership has correctly identified what needs to be corrected in the first place.
Interestingly Baby maintained silence on recent issues involving the Enforcement Directorate allegation on Pinarayi Vijayan.
