KOZHIKODE: Maoists are synonymous with a political group that shuns electoral politics. But there are other organisations and individuals too who loath elections, in tune with their political ideologies. Porattam is one such organisation that has decried elections.
During the last assembly elections, 10 Porattam activists were arrested by the police and slapped with UAPA after they stuck posters calling for a boycott of elections.“Electoral politics doesn’t replace the existing power system which is exploitative in nature. Electoral politics only changes the government through which the regime runs its agenda. Only people’s revolution will replace the regime,” says Porattam convenor Shanto Lal.
Porattam chairman MN Ravunni and Lal were among those arrested in 2016 for their call to shun elections. They were held 10 days before the assembly elections then as they went to paste boycott posters at Niravilpuzha in Wayanad.
Murali Kannamballi, 67, a former CRC-CPI (ML) central committee member, says that shunning elections is part of the morality of the politics he upholds. “Seventy-five per cent of the people who cast votes are doing it only because they have to approach the local leaders for mundane needs. They are not voting because they believe in the existing system or they think the system is just,” observes Kannamballi, who has never voted.
Rajan P K, a former CPI (ML) leader from Kannur is over 70 now and has not cast a single vote in his entire life.“I don’t believe in it,” he puts it simply. Cut to the present generation, and there are election shunners among youngsters too. Ami, the daughter of jailed Maoist leader Roopesh, affirms that she has not voted so far and will not do so in the future either. Sources point out that the Revolutionary Democratic Front, a pro-Maoist front, is another organisation which calls for a boycott of elections in Kerala.
Among the Naxalite leaders who took a U-turn later to embrace electoral politics, the most notable is K Venu who contested as a JSS candidate in the 1996 assembly elections. Two Maoist-Leninist political entities -- CPI ML (Redstar) and CPI ML (Redflag) -- began participating in elections and even fielded their own candidates after having boycotted elections in the past. Redstar has already announced a candidate in Perambra and is set to field candidates in Sultan Bathery and Puthukkad.
“We began fielding candidates from the 1999 general elections. Now, our stand is that vote should be cast to resist the ascent of BJP,” says CPI ML (Redstar) state president M K Dasan. Redflag has been voting for the LDF.
“In the past, Naxalite groups had taken a stand that electoral politics should be opposed completely. But the meaningless of that was exposed when communal politics began engulfing the political sphere. This triggered many organisations to effect a paradigm shift,” felt M M Somasekharan, former CPI (ML) leader.