Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will lead LDF’s Assembly poll campaign in Kerala, confirms CPI(M) PB

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] stated that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will lead the Left Democratic Front (LDF) campaign in the Kerala Assembly elections. CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby told a press conference in New Delhi that the party would take a call on who should be the Chief Ministerial candidate only after the LDF emerged victorious in the polls. 

Mr. Baby said the CPI(M) would announce its candidates for Kerala within a week. “The candidate list will be a mix of young and seasoned leaders. The party would ensure the inclusion of marginalised sections of society, including women, in the list”, he said. When asked whether caste and communal equations would influence candidate selection, Mr. Baby said: “Not community factors, but social factors. For one, women are an oppressed section,” he said. 

Mr. Baby said the party was firm on the two-term principle for legislators. “However, the party does not preclude flexibility and exceptions, given the winnability factors in play in every election,” he said. Mr. Baby said the CPI(M) district secretariats would send their respective choices to the party’s State Secretariat and State Committee. “Some names will likely be supplanted, given ground-level political realities,” he said. 

In other States

Mr. Baby said the LDF would significantly expand in the run-up to the Assembly polls in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and Kerala. “Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, and other left socialist groups, will throw in their lot with the LDF. Some groups will evolve as LDF constituents, while others will work in tandem with front under the banner of LDF Plus,” he said. 

Mr. Baby said Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) aggressive Hindu majoritarian nationalism has spawned “minority extremist groups,” some of which “are active in Kerala”. “Both the fascist-revanchist groups share a mutually symbiotic relationship, with one feeding off the social insecurity caused by the other. The PB has asked secular democratic forces to maintain social vigil against such schismatic forces,” he said. 

In Chintha’s defence

Mr. Baby defended CPI(M) leader Chintha Jerome, who had come under social media attack for allegedly resorting to misogynistic sloganeering during a DYFI protest against the Kerala Student Union’s black-flag protest against the Health Minister Veena George. “An immature youth raised the slogan. Some elements used AI to doctor the original video and make it appear as if Ms. Jerome had mouthed the offensive words,” he said. 

The PB passed a resolution condemning Congress’s “physical targeting” of Ms. George. It noted that a vilification campaign was afoot to besmirch Kerala’s storied public health system. “The misinformation campaign is part of a larger conspiracy to undermine public confidence in the PHS and drive ordinary citizens to prohibitively expensive corporate health sector,” Mr. Baby said. The PB also passed a resolution condemning the Sangh Parivar attack on minorities and Dalits.