Kannur (Kerala), May 8 (IANS) In a significant political intervention after the Left Democratic Front’s crushing defeat in the Kerala Assembly elections, senior CPI-M leader E. P. Jayarajan on Friday publicly acknowledged the scale of the setback and called for introspection within the party, even as he sought to rally cadres for a political comeback.

Jayarajan’s unusually candid Facebook post assumes added significance given his long and often complicated political relationship with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Both leaders hail from Kannur, the ideological nerve-centre of the CPI-M in Kerala, where the party has traditionally projected an image of organisational invincibility.

The election, however, delivered the worst-ever drubbing for the Vijayan-led Left, reducing the front to just 35 seats, including 26 for the CPI-M.

A powerful figure during the first Vijayan government, Jayarajan had served as Industries Minister and was widely seen as one of the most influential leaders in the cabinet.

But his political standing suffered a major setback in 2021 when he was denied a ticket to contest the Assembly elections under the CPI-M’s generational shift policy.

Since then, Jayarajan has largely remained away from the political limelight, occasionally expressing dissatisfaction over developments within the party.

Against that backdrop, his latest remarks are being closely watched within political circles.

In the post, Jayarajan described the electoral defeat as completely unexpected despite what he termed ten years of model governance under the Left government.

At the same time, he admitted that lapses could have occurred while functioning within a bourgeois democratic process, invoking observations once made by former Chief Minister E.M.S. Namboodiripad.

Without directly criticising the leadership, Jayarajan stressed that the CPI-M had historically survived through self-correction, ideological discipline and organisational restructuring after setbacks.

Drawing parallels with earlier reverses suffered by the Communist movement in Kerala, he argued that the Left had repeatedly demonstrated the ability to recover politically after periods of decline.

In a pointed political contrast, Jayarajan also took aim at the Congress-led UDF, which swept the elections with 102 seats, saying the alliance was now witnessing infighting and public wrangling over the Chief Minister’s post despite its massive mandate.

The senior leader further warned against what he called the growing fascist tendencies of the Sangh Parivar at the national level and argued that any weakening of the Left in Kerala would strengthen communal forces and threaten the state’s secular fabric.

More than a routine political statement, Jayarajan’s intervention is being viewed as an attempt to reposition himself in the post-defeat churn within the CPI-M, while simultaneously signalling that sections within the party are preparing for an ideological and organisational reset after one of the most damaging verdicts in the Left’s history.

–IANS

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