CPM still in shock of defeat in Malabar; detailed analysis

KOZHIKODE: CPM is still in shock at what happened in constituencies including Kannur. There were two constituencies in Malabar where the party had openly declared and confirmed to win. KK Shailaja in Vadakara and Polit Bureau member A Vijayaraghavan in Palakkad. It was calculated that MV Balakrishnan would beat Rajmohan Unnithan in Kasaragod, MV Jayarajan would win against Sudhakaran in Kannur and central committee member Elamaram Karim would win in Kozhikode. However, party could not touch even Vadakara and Palakkad, which they firmly believed in.

The contest in Vadakara was closely watched by political Kerala. KK Shailaja was the best candidate CPM could field in Kerala. A thrilling competition from start to finish. Still, Shailaja had to surrender by 1,14,506 votes. Bigger defeat than P Jayarajan. While P Jayarajan contested, UDF's K Muralidharan's majority was 84,663. This time a slight majority only in Thalassery. Koothuparamba, Perambra and Koyilandy, voters who had always supported the Reds, didn't support the party.

In Kannur, KPCC president K Sudhakaran got a majority of 1,08982 votes.
Sudhakaran's majority was 94559 in 2019. Sudhakaran's advance was by knocking down all the left forts. While Sudhakaran advanced with a huge lead in Kannur, Azhikode, Peravoor and Irikkur constituencies, CPM's lead in Dharmadom and Mattannur narrowed considerably.

CPM could not advance even in a single assembly constituency in Kasaragod where Unnithan won his second victory. Till 2019, the constituency supported the left. In 2019, when Unnithan contested for the first time, the number of votes he got was 40,438. Unnithan raised that to 1,00,649 in his second attempt. Kozhikode is another constituency that shook CPM. In spite of holding six of the seven assembly constituencies except Koduvalli, they could not raise a majority even in one place. MK Raghavan defeated Central Committee member Elamaram Karim in his fourth chance by 1,46,176 votes. Raghavan's majority last time was 85,225.

After Vadakara in Malabar, Palakkad was CPM's most promising constituency. Constituency contested by Politburo member A Vijayaraghavan. Last time, VK Sreekantan from UDF won his maiden contest by 11,637 votes. That was raised to 75,283 votes this time. Except for Shornur and Malampuzha, all the old forts were swept away by the UDF.