THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With just a few months remaining for the local body elections, and later the assembly elections, the CPM appears to be breathing a little easier as far as the crucial Christian community votes are concerned.
According to the CPM state leadership, much of the Christian voters who had extended support to the LDF in the 2021 assembly elections did not drift away in the 2024 parliamentary elections. The assessment came as a sigh of relief to the party leadership when it had much to worry about regarding the return of a majority of Muslim votes to the UDF kitty. The party state committee came to this conclusion after verifying both results and voting percentages in Christian-dominated segments.
The review undertaken months ago, after the Lok Sabha election results were declared, stated that while Muslim votes had drifted away from the LDF, the pattern was absent in the case of Christian votes.
“There wasn’t much drifting of votes from the constituencies where the Christian community is a formidable force,” the report said.
The review cited Pathanamthitta as an example. Incidentally, the LDF won all the assembly constituencies. In the Lok Sabha election too, the votes were intact.
However, despite the CPM taking various steps to protect the minority rights of the Muslim community, the voters who had supported the LDF in the last assembly election shifted to the UDF, the report is learnt to have said. Over the past few years, many international and national developments concerning the community have happened, Palestine and citizenship amendment, for instance. In these issues, the CPM took a stand supporting the rights of the minority.
At the same time, the Congress refused to take a clear stand. A section of the Samastha Kerala Jem-iyyathul Ulama supported the LDF government. Samastha’s AP Sunni faction too supported the party even after forces like Jamaat-e-Islami tried to create division. However, when the election results were declared, it turned out that the community votes had drifted towards the UDF, the CPM reviews.
Considering the evolving political situation, the CPM has asked the local party leadership to take stock of the probable UDF and BJP votes in each local body in view of the coming local body elections. The party has also asked them to intensify the registration of new voters in the voter’s list. The CPM has also reshuffled some of the subcommittees formed in local bodies where it is in power to coordinate the governance after complaints were raised about inefficiency of the secretaries of those committees.
NEW APPROACH
The CPM has asked the local party leadership to take stock of the probable UDF and BJP votes in each local body in view of the coming local body elections
The party has also asked them to intensify the registration of new voters in the voter’s list
The CPM has also reshuffled some of the subcommittees formed in local bodies where it is in power to coordinate the governance