Make introspection to check if minority votes drifted away from LDF: CPI

The Communist Party of India (CPI) State Executive on Tuesday called for an introspection into whether minority community votes had swung away from the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the local body elections.

Minority communities were the Left’s natural allies, given the ascendancy of Hindu majoritarian nationalist forces over the past two decades. The LDF should expressly engage in self-criticism to determine whether the minorities have ceased to regard the ruling front as a natural ally and bulwark against the muscular Hindutva. The CPI also stressed that ideological clarity de-alienated the LDF from other political forces.

Secular image

The critique assumes significance against the backdrop of criticism that the LDF risked losing its secular image among the minorities by seemingly failing to disassociate with and condemn influential leaders of powerful Hindu caste organisations accused of repeatedly and unapologetically bashing minority communities, including Muslims and Christians, in north and central Kerala, respectively. 

A CPI insider noted that the LDF had taken a beating in the Christian-settler-farmer-dominated hilly districts despite the government passing a landmark law regularising land-use violations on acres allocated solely for farming and housing, a longstanding demand of the Church.

Similarly, he noted that LDF’s undiluted stance on Palestine, the CAA, the NEP, hijab, minority persecution in BJP-ruled States and related issues, which resonated emotively among the minorities, did not translate into votes, especially in north Kerala.

Communal identity politics

The CPI, according to some, also weighed whether the “ill-timed” Global Ayyappa Sanghamam and the Sabarimala gold theft scandal had propelled the Hindutva agenda, arguably dominant since the religiously charged Save Sabarimala Campaign in 2018, to the heart of the election debate, overshadowing the LDF’s social welfare and development narrative and, consequently, fuelling communal identity politics, arguably advantaging rival alliances.

The CPI State executive also felt that Hindutva and Islamist forces coalesced into the UDF’s “brazenly” anti-secular and anti-Left narrative stream, signalling a politically expedient nexus between the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami to undermine the LDF.  The CPI said the LDF’s battles against the Union government on fiscal federalism and minority rights did not resonate with voters as expected. 

However, the CPI State Council said the LDF was far from a spent political force. It said the ruling front fared better than in the 2010 local body elections. In the 2011 Assembly elections, the LDF restricted the UDF to a razor-thin two-seat majority. The political winds would blow differently in 2026, and the CPI concluded that the LDF would recover lost ground.