The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], Congress, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) initiated a post campaign review a day before the counting of votes in the Puthuppally Assembly constituency on September 8.
CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan appeared to temper the party’s hopes in Puthuppally. He told journalists in Thrissur the CPI(M) stood a strong fighting chance in the byelection if the BJP had not tactically voted for the Congress. He also said the contest was tight and unpredictable.
Mr. Govindan said the margin of votes that made the difference between victory and loss would surely be narrow. “It is not going to be a landslide walkover for any one alliance,” Mr. Govindan said.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K. Sudhakaran, MP, said the CPI(M) stared at a dismal defeat in Puthuppally. Mr. Govindan had taken anticipatory bail by falsely imputing that a Congress win would ride on the BJP’s surreptitious channelling of votes to the United Democratic Front (UDF).
He said Mr. Govindan had sent a cue to CPI(M) spokespersons to take to the airwaves and broadcast the lie to explain away the party’s impending defeat. Mr. Sudhakaran said Puthuppally would prove ominous for Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. It would signal the start of a mutinous churning in the CPI(M).
Mr.Sudhakaran said former Finance Minister and CPI(M) Central Committee member T. M. Thomas Isaac had fired the first shot against Mr. Vijayan. He said Dr. Isaac compared the Pinarayi Vijayan government to a rusted machine in an opinion piece written in a party-run magazine.
Mr. Sudhakaran said Dr. Isaac’s words reflected the brewing anti-Pinarayi sentiment in the CPI(M). He alleged that the CPI(M) campaign in Puthuppally lacked lustre, and Ministers had merely made a token election tour of the constituency. He said the government’s wrongdoings weighed heavily on the Left campaign in Puthuppally.
Mr. Sudhakaran demanded an inquiry into the lower polling percentage in the byelection. He wondered whether there was any extraneous political interference to slow the polling process deliberately.
BJP candidate G. Lijin Lal told reporters in Kottayam that his strong showing in Puthuppally would negate allegations of tactical cross-voting.
He said voters in Kerala had seen through the shadowboxing between the Congress and the CPI(M). “They were allies at the Centre and mock enemies in Kerala. Mr Vijayan’s face prominently adorns the Congress-led INDIA alliance’s propaganda material,” he said.
