Former Kerala finance minister and CPI(M) Central Committee member T M Thomas Isaac has pushed back against the party’s attempt to explain its electoral setbacks by blaming sections of its supporters.
Speaking at a CPI(M) public meeting at Vallikunnu in Alappuzha on Tuesday, September 1, he said that the CPI(M) must instead acknowledge its own failures and convince people that it has changed.
Isaac’s remarks came days after Opposition leader Pinarayi Vijayan said those who had temporarily moved away from the party should introspect and correct their decision, while concluding the party’s political explanatory meetings in Taliparamba.
Isaac struck a markedly different note, arguing that the party cannot simply dismiss those who have left or become disillusioned with it. He said the CPI(M) needs to change its approach and demonstrate to people that it has genuinely course corrected.
“If someone leaves our party, we think, ‘Let him go. We don’t have to answer him.’ But that mentality should change. We should correct ourselves. And it is not just enough to correct ourselves, but we should convince people that we have corrected ourselves,” Isaac said.
He also acknowledged that the party’s own statements and actions fueled a campaign accusing the CPI(M) of fixing a deal with the BJP during the Assembly elections..
“There was a massive campaign that we had a deal with the BJP, and they succeeded with that campaign. That is how they took all the minority seats. But some of our own conversations also helped that campaign,” Isaac said.
In an apparent reference to the Ayyappa Sangamam, which had triggered political controversy, Isaac said the party’s intentions were interpreted differently by voters. “What was said at the Ayyappa Sangamam, though we intended nothing by it, was misunderstood,” he said.
Isaac also referred to controversies surrounding cooperative banks, stressing that the issue could not be brushed aside as an internal party matter when ordinary people’s money was involved.
“I don’t know about the cooperative bank here, but it is not our money or our party fund. It is the money of people who trusted us,” he said.
His remarks assume significance amid criticism over allegations of corruption involving CPI(M) members in cooperative banks, as well as the departure of leaders such as V Kunhikrishnan and T K Govindan, who have raised allegations against the party leadership and its functioning.
While Pinarayi, at Taliparamba, had said that some people who had stood with the party for years had “changed their thinking” during the election and should introspect, Isaac’s intervention places the responsibility more directly on the party itself.
At the Taliparamba meeting, Pinarayi Vijayan had put the onus for the CPI(M)’s electoral setback largely on sections of its own supporters who had shifted their allegiance. He said those who had stood with the party for years but voted differently in the election had taken the wrong stand and should introspect and correct their mistake. Pinarayi Vijayan had also singled out T K Govindan, who defeated the CPI(M)’s candidate in its Taliparamba stronghold, accusing him of opportunism and betrayal.
Isaac rejected the idea that the electorate had turned against the LDF’s policies.
“There is no doubt about the policies of our government. People do not hate us. We have to earn their trust. They have not completely abandoned us; they have only given us shock treatment,” he said.
The former finance minister’s remarks suggest that the party’s electoral crisis cannot be addressed merely by asking disgruntled supporters to return. Instead, he argued, the CPI(M) has to confront the reasons why people who once trusted it have moved away and demonstrate through its conduct that the corrections it promises are real.
The contrasting positions come at a time when the CPI(M) is assessing its poor performance in several traditional strongholds in the Kerala Assembly polls. While the party leadership has spoken of organisational weaknesses and other shortcomings, Pinarayi’s Taliparamba remarks placed particular emphasis on supporters who had deserted the party during the election.
Isaac, however, argued that winning back public trust requires the party to first accept responsibility for its own failures.