Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader and sitting MLA of Vadakara in Kozhikode K.K. Rema is seeking re-election from the constituency as a United Democratic Front (UDF)-backed candidate. Talking to The Hindu, she asserts that the voters will reject the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government for its “anti-people” policies.
You are contesting for the third time from Vadakara. But this is your first poll battle after getting elected as an MLA in 2021. What are your hopes this time?
We are getting a good feedback from the voters. All the circumstances are conducive for a consecutive second victory. The campaign is mainly focussed on the anti-incumbency feelings against the LDF government. That sentiment is clearly visible. The development works that I have undertaken in the past five years will also have an impact on voters.
Are you concerned about the change in your symbol? It was football in 2021, but now you have been allotted television?
No such worries though we have incurred some financial losses as posters with that symbol had already been printed before we got a new one. However, television was the symbol used by my late husband T.P. Chandrasekharan when he contested the Lok Sabha polls for the first time in 2009. We have an emotional bond with the symbol. The voters have wholeheartedly accepted that symbol.
A host of former senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leaders are contesting under the banner of other political fronts this election. Your party, the RMP, also was launched as a rebel organisation opposed to the CPI(M). How do you view this situation?
We came out of the CPI(M) in 2008. Some people who were with that party then are leaving it now. We have had to endure severe difficulties for forming a new political organisation. Many people suffered and some even lost their jobs. The CPI(M) strategy against us was nothing less than fascism. We could overcome all that and continue our work. But, the difference now is that the number of kulam kuthis (a word used by the then CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan to describe party cadre who leave the organisation ‘betraying’ its ideals) across the State have gone up. Mr. Vijayan doesn’t have the guts to call them kulam kuthis now. If he dares to use that word again, the whole party will break into pieces and the cadre, who are frustrated over its ideological deviations and wayward methods, will come out in large numbers. The CPI(M) has lost its working class characteristics.
Did you ever try to contact any of those dissident leaders?
Yes. People like the former Minister G. Sudhakaran, who had been with the CPI(M) for around six decades, have deserted it. In Payyannur, the funds collected in the name of a martyr has been diverted. The CPI(M) is yet to respond to the allegations levelled by former party leader V. Kunhikrishnan, who is the UDF candidate from the constituency now. The RMP leadership has spoken to some of those people. We are getting into discussions on forming a broad Left platform. The CPI(M)’s condition in Kerala is going to be worse than in West Bengal.
