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.
Governor Acknowledges Organizational Issues Amid Intervention
Governor Govindan stated, “We will fix whatever needs to be fixed and adopt the right stand. There have been lapses and organisational weaknesses. It’s true. That’s why we are doing an intervention right now.” This statement comes as the government initiates measures to address identified shortcomings within its structure.
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. “We should have exposed this false narrative and defeated. But we failed to do so. There were other lapses on our part too.
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. During his inaugural address, general secretary Baby said that there was a deliberate creation of false perception about the LDF among the masses. We need to correct such lapses and regain the trust of the people,” he said.
