THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CPM is confident of improving its existing tally by winning more than one of the five assembly seats for which byelections will take place on October 21. The CPM had only one sitting seat among them.
The CPM state secretariat which met here on Friday observed that the NSS stand—of doing away with its equidistance policy—would not make much difference in the byelections. The party is, however, hopeful that the SNDP votes would work in favour of the party in at least a few constituencies.
“The NSS has always adopted such a stance during elections, the only difference being that this time, they made it known a bit early. Though the NSS leadership has publicly declared its stance, its members would take their own stand, as per their individual political preferences. Even in Pala, the NSS stance was more or less the same,” said CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
The CPM leadership is paying special focus on Manjeswar and Vattiyoorkavu where the Left candidates were pushed to the third slot in the last assembly poll.
Fresh from the Pala victory, the party and LDF are following the same campaign strategy that it adopted in the standalone bypoll.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, along with the CPM state secretary, has been leading the campaign in all five constituencies. In Manjeswar, the Left is campaigning against the alleged “communal campaign” by UDF and NDA while in Vattiyoorkavu, it is hopeful that Mayor V K Prasanth’s popularity would work in its favour. The party leadership has reviewed the poll preparedness in all five constituencies, hoping to make up for the Lok Sabha poll debacle this time.