Aiming to reverse 2019 rout, Kerala CPI(M) bets on seasoned faces for LS polls; ropes in Shailaja, Isaac

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the CPI(M)-led LDF won only one seat in Kerala. The face-saver had come from Alappuzha, where youth leader and then sitting legislator A M Arif wrested the seat from the Congress. The party has renominated Arif from the same constituency this time.

In a bid to reverse the rout of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, most of the candidates fielded by the CPI(M) are seasoned leaders who have had a long stint with the party. This marks a departure from its experiment with fresh faces in the 2021 Assembly polls.

Kerala is the last red bastion in the country, the only state where the CPI(M) is confident of putting up a strong performance, which is crucial for its relevance in national politics. Since the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the party’s fortunes have been on a decline nationally, culminating in the 2019 elections, when it suffered a severe setback, winning only three seats. Only in Kerala does the party see a chance to reverse the trend now.

Of its 15 candidates, K Radhakrishnan, who is contesting from Alathur, is a minister in the Pinarayi Vijayan Cabinet. In Kollam, actor-cum-legislator Mukesh will take on sitting MP N K Premachandran of the RSP, which is an ally of the Congress in the state. At Attingal, the party’s choice is its Varkala MLA V Joy, who is also its Thiruvananthapuram district secretary.

In Pathanamthitta, former minister Thomas Isaac, who was ignored in the 2021 Assembly elections, will take on sitting Congress MP Anto Antony. CPI(M) Politburo member A Vijayaraghavan has been tasked with wresting Palakkad from the Congress, which he had won on his Lok Sabha debut in 1989.

In Kozhikode, senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Elamaram Kareem, a prominent Muslim face of the party, has been pitted against three-time Congress MP M K Raghavan. In Kannur and Kasaragod, respective party district secretaries M V Jayarajan and M V Balakrishnan have been fielded. The party has also brought back former minister Professor C Raveendranath as its candidate in Chalakudy. Joice M George, who won Idukki in 2014 but lost it in 2019, is back in the fray from the seat.

The only new faces are DYFI leader V Vaseef, who is contesting in Malappuram, former Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader K S Hamza in Ponnani, and K G Shine in Ernakulam.

This time, all the CPI(M) candidates are contesting on the party symbol, unlike in 2014 and 2019, when Joice had contested from Idukki as a Left-backed independent. In 2014, Joice was introduced to politics by the Church-backed High Range Protection Samithi. Sensing the sentiments of the farmers in the area, the party had decided to throw its weight behind Joice as a Church-backed Independent.

In Ponnani, the CPI(M) has returned to its tried and tested strategy of picking up disgruntled leaders or rebels from the IUML, the party that dominates Muslim politics in North Kerala. Hamza was the IUML state secretary when he was sacked by the party in 2022. Social media has already been heated up by a campaign, claiming that Hamza enjoys the backing of a section of SAMASTHA, a scholars’ body closely associated with the IUML. In the previous Assembly elections, the CPI(M) successfully made inroads into some IUML strongholds in Malappuram district by deploying ex-IUML leaders as candidates.

Popular CPI(M) leader and former health minister K K Shailaja has been fielded from Vatakara to ensure that political violence does not return as a topic of debate there. The party had lost all Lok Sabha elections in Vatakara since 2009, after rebel leader T P Chandrasekharan floated a local party RMP and dented the CPI(M) vote base there. Since his murder in 2012, violence has been a recurring theme in the politics of the constituency.