THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CPM has alleged that the UDF bought RSS - Sangh Parivar votes in the by-election held in Palakkad. Addressing a press conference on Friday at the state secretariat, CPM state secretary M V Govindan said the UDF tried to polarise communal votes to win the bypoll in Palakkad.
“A significant per cent of RSS votes were purchased by the UDF. Likewise, they also created communal polarisation by bringing together minority communal elements like SDPI and Jamaat-e-Islami. SDPI was the first organisation to hold a victory celebration in Palakkad. They also claimed at a press conference that the party had polled 10,000 votes in favour of the Congress in Palakkad,” Govindan said.
Meanwhile, the secretariat observed that LDF candidate U R Pradeep’s performance in Chelakkara was exceptional. It dismissed the UDF claim that the margin of victory was lower than the result in the 2021 assembly election. “The victory in 2021 is part of an LDF wave,” a senior leader told TNIE.
“In the 2024 Parliament elections, the same candidate’s winning margin against UDF was only around 5,000 votes.
However, Pradeep could increase that tally,” he said. While accepting that BJP’s vote share has gone up to 5% in the constituency, the secretariat dismissed the claim that it denotes the steady growth of the saffron party.
The CPM is of the view that BJP’s increase in vote share is linked to its candidate. “Being a local leader and a former panchayat vice-president at Thiruvilwamala helped him garner more votes,” a CPM leader said. The secretariat also dismissed the allegation that most of its workers did not cast their votes for CPI candidate in Wayanad. “The vote share of the two fronts had decreased in the constituency,” Govindan said.
In Palakkad, though the party could not improve its third place, CPM leadership is of the view that its choice of candidate had not gone wrong. “The increase in vote share indicates that the party has made its presence felt in areas where it was decimated in the last election.
The party has increased its vote share in its stronghold panchayats like Kannadi and Mathoor where CPM had gone down in the last election,” he said. The secretariat has decided to use P Sarin’s expertise after consultation with him.