A month after the 2024 Lok Sabha Election debacle, Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leader TM Thomas Issac has made notable criticisms with regard to his party’s dismal performance in the polls. Isaac, who contested from the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala said that the CPI(M) failed to gauge the changes that took place in voters' sentiments.
‘The party didn’t recognise the opposition wave at any stage of the election. When the voter turnout decreased to 70%, we assessed that the vote that decayed was from the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),” the former Finance Minister said.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha Election, the LDF managed to secure only one seat, just like they did in the 2019 election, among the 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
However, the most notable criticism made by Isaac, who is also a Central Committee member of the party was that “arrogant behaviour of party members is alienating the people from the party. This can be seen across various levels of the party. We should always be polite to the people. Like Mao famously said, Communists should be with the people like fish in water”.
Isaac also admits the fact that, in many constituencies, significant numbers of LDF votes were not cast. ‘Either party has failed to understand the people or people are not opening up,’ he added.
He mentioned that corruption allegations surrounding party-run cooperative banks led to a dent in credibility of the party. He also announced that, to address all these setbacks a comprehensive correction plan has been accepted by the party and also stated that the new students are not attracted to the party because of the apolitical behaviour of the new generation in the world of social media, where the left's influence is weak.
In the 2024 election Alathur is the only constituency the LDF managed to secure a seat. In Alathur the former Kerala cabinet minister K Radhakrishnan secured the seat with a margin of 20,111 votes. Notably, they lost the Alappuzha seat, which was the only seat the LDF won in 2019. There LDF candidate AM Ariff lost to Congress’ KC Venugopal by over 62,000 votes.