The Communist Party of India-Marxist leadership which had shut its doors on the CPI and had unilaterally given the green signal to the Abdul Nasser Madani sponsored candidate Hussain Randathany to go ahead with the election campaign in Ponnani Lok Sabha constituency has now reconciled.
It seems that the national leadership of the CPI-M which does not want to antagonize the CPI in the larger interests of left unity and the newly floated third front has preassuried upon the CPI-M state leadership to pacify the CPI leadership.
This was evident when the CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan told press persons that CPI has been given four seats to contest in the Lok Sabha elections .Dr. Hussain Randathany who was adamant and had told media that he had
already gone several steps ahead in the election campaign also relented and told press persons that he would move further ahead in the campaign after the CPI leadership also gives the nod .
This is seen as a positive move in left circles as the CPI was threatening to move out of the left front and the party even bringing out its own panel to contest in all the 14 Lok Sabha seats, which the CPI-M would contest in the polls.
The CPI-M state leadership ,according to sources in the party , is clearly offended on the issue and wants to teach the CPI a lesson in the polls. The CPI-M believes that the CPI would not be able to contest the elections on its own and that it could manipulate the voting trend in several booths in the constituencies. Given the fury with which Pinarayi Vijayan addressed the press it is amply clear that he is clearly hurt at the moves of the CPI leadership and that the party is waiting for an opportune moment to strike back .
There are even possibilities of a complete rout of all the four CPI candidates in the fray. A senior leader of the CPI-M while speaking to rediff.com said "The CPI-M which is the largest political party in the state is contesting only 14 seats in the interests of the Left front while in the United Democratic Front ,the Congress is contesting 17 seats and the Indian Union Muslim League in only 2 seats". He adds, "The Muslim League is a larger grass root party when compared to the CPI and the CPI-M is generous in allocating a much higher share of seats to the CPI, in both the assembly and parliament elections, disproportionate to its representation at the grass root level".
Highly placed sources in the CPI-M told rediff.com that the party is considering the possibility of having exposing the CPI and its grass root strength in all the140 assembly constituencies in the state and to corner it with a correct picture of its actual strength. The CPI-M Malappuram district committee has already brought out a statistical study showing that the CPI has only 6500 votes in the Ponnani Lok Sabha constituency while Abdul Nasser Madani's Peoples Democratic Party has more than 60000 votes in the constituency.
