THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: On Friday while responding to repeated questions on what went wrong at Thrikkakara, a guarded Kodiyeri stressed on just one aspect - CPM is to bring in necessary corrections and exercise more caution while moving forward.
“Every query is covered in that sentence,” smiled Kodiyeri. More than the defeat, it is the margin of victory that has jolted the CPM leadership out of its complacency. As Kodiyeri kept repeating, the party never expected such a huge margin of difference. In fact going by the district leadership’s assessment till Thursday, especially after the voting, the margin of difference between the candidates was to be anything between 3000 to 5000. “It would be a close call and there are even chances of winning,” is what the party district unit told the higher ups.
Such a gross misinterpretation of on-ground facts is where the party now intends to bring in the ‘corrective measures’ that Kodiyeri kept harping on. The party would assess its absolute failure to clearly read the grassroots scenario — both during campaigning and after voting. Even while maintaining that it polled 2,244 votes more than 2021 and was able to increase the vote share from 33.32 to 35.28%, the CPM is well aware that the increase in vote share is not in tune with the ground work put in by party. “We expected more votes, but were unable to garner the same. The slight increase is not sufficient enough, and hence booth-level evaluation would be done,” said Kodiyeri.
That the party, state and district leaderships are not on the same page is pretty evident. In fact the way the CPM district leadership conceded defeat by the fourth round of counting itself, neither taking responsibility for the same nor pegging the blame on someone, is a novel sight within the party.
If it was not for the high-decibel campaigning initiated by the Left camp, the LDF wouldn’t have lost face, post-defeat. With CM Pinarayi Vijayan directly playing the electoral bugle, camping in the constituency for more than a week alongside the entire cabinet, with a slew of MLAs on house visits and what-not, the Left was expecting a turnaround of fortunes in Thrikkakara. “There are at least 30 strongholds in the state where the UDF will win for sure. Thrikkakara is one such constituency and Ernakulam is a district where the UDF has such an upper hand,” is how Kodiyeri assessed the verdict. In that case, was it necessary for the CM himself to lead such a mega campaign is the question that is now doing the round within party circles.
There were no dearth of electoral blunders by the party, rued sources, right from candidate selection to announcement at a church-run institution, with him being projected as a church-backed candidate and later denying the same, over-emphasis on an alleged fake sleaze video, deliberate ploys with regard to the SilverLine project and finally the needless remarks on the survivor in the actor assault case.
UDF brought anti-Left forces together: CPM
The UDF was able to bring together anti-Left forces, feels the CPM. The Left hasn’t lost its mass base, said the party leadership in its assessment. The UDF increased its winning margin as it was able to poach BJP votes which went down from 15,483 to 12,995, pointed out CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. Similarly Twenty20 was not in the fray this time around. This too helped the UDF to increase its vote share.