In a parliamentary democracy, public opinion on political parties is best reflected in elections. Kerala voters, known for their extraordinary political consciousness, delivered their verdict in black and white in the April 9 assembly election. They rejected the CPM-led LDF and gave the Congress-led UDF another chance. But CPM appears either unable to read the writing on the wall, or is launching a post-poll public outreach programme as a mere eyewash, as if asking people to explain why they failed to appreciate the Pinarayi Vijayan govt that served them for 10 years at a go. Sadly, the exercise only exposes the abyss of moral and political ineptitude the party has plunged into.

There is an irony, and a political joke, in the fact that CPM is facing a survival crisis barely a decade after declaring itself finally free from the internal factionalism, led mostly by veteran communist V S Achuthanandan. Under Pinarayi Vijayan, senior party functionaries ensured that no voice of dissent reached or reverberated through party committees, of which Vijayan once bluntly declared the civil society and media knew nothing about.

At the peak of this organisational tranquillity came the 2026 assembly election, and CPM’s tally collapsed from 62 in the legislative assembly to 26. The state secretariat and state committee appear oddly consoled by the party’s ability to retain the digits 6 and 2, albeit in reverse order. The task before them now, it seems, is to figure out by what glitch these numbers failed to fall in the right place. And so, a party that spent years eliminating critical voices within is now seeking public advice on how to regain its political currency.

“This could most probably be an eye wash. An attempt to create a fake impression that CPM is open to criticism and suggestions. If not, it is an open admission that the functionality of the party’s organisational structure has collapsed. Senior functionaries have lost touch with reality and are now forced to launch another public relations exercise to gauge public mood,” said veteran journalist and writer M G Radhakrishnan.

Paradoxically, this is not the first time the CPM approached the general public with this “tell us why” question. CPM ran a similar exercise under the name of the Navakeralam survey just ahead of the assembly election, as if to glean what more civil society expected from the LDF govt, at a time when the party was firmly expecting a third straight win.

“CPM can no longer function the way it used to. The traditional sectors and the labourers over whom the party held considerable sway no longer exist as such. Times have changed, and the party, if it has to maintain political currency, must find new ways to address an aspirational middle class that is not bound by any political dogma. Self-reflection, not gimmicks, is the solution,” Radhakrishnan added.

Unless the CPM leadership accepts the public verdict with humility and admits that voters, including those who once favoured LDF, rejected the way Pinarayi Vijayan conducted governance during his second term, the party cannot prove the sincerity behind the outreach.

Anti-incumbency has seldom operated with such surgical precision as it did in the 2026 assembly election, yet the CPM high command still appears unable to see it. The UDF’s sweeping win was powered by anti-incumbency against the LDF govt—that much is plain. People voted with intent and electorally humbled CPM. By defeating party candidates in Payyannur and Thaliparamba, CPM’s red bastions, even the party’s own cadres expressed their dissent.

By defeating UDF candidate P K Sasi, a former CPM functionary of controversial repute, the public also demonstrated that their support for UDF is not unconditional. And the fact that Vijayan trailed in his own sitting seat—at least momentarily—against a relatively unknown UDF face laid bare the depth of dissent over the manner in which he had conducted himself as chief minister. Yet the CPM still cannot understand what went wrong.

If the party had genuinely cared about public opinion, there was no shortage of inputs in the public domain for it to course-correct. It remained non-committal on the Sabarimala gold heist. It fully subscribed to the anti-democratic narrative the former chief minister offered to justify the brutal attack on Youth Congress workers. And if CPM’s Kannur district committee could not tell right from wrong in candidate selection at Taliparamba, despite a majority of members opposing the candidacy of P K Syamala, then civil society and media have every reason to question the sincerity of this new outreach.

“In the absence of power, the party may regain clearer vision,” said political analyst and academic Damodar Prasad, welcoming CPM’s decision to seek public opinion for self-improvement, but adding a sharp qualification. “If CPM leaders had been listening to the wide range of criticism and proposals for improvement already available in the public domain, they would not have suffered this debacle. CPM appears to have relied too heavily on the frog-in-the-well perspective of a section of cyber comrades who are nothing but apologists. In that process, it lost the ability to perceive reality.”
When political morality was considered an indispensable leadership quality, resignation was the norm after electoral routs. But like most parties in the country, CPM has abandoned that norm.

Vijayan himself firmly established this when he refused V S Achuthanandan’s demand for his resignation as party state secretary over the SNC-Lavalin case. Ministers and functionaries stepping down over a bridge collapse, a train mishap, or an electoral setback is a preposterous proposition in the current milieu. CPM sees no reason why it should be held to a different standard. But unless the current leadership owns moral responsibility for this rout and resigns, the new PR exercise will be seen for what it is, a vainglorious attempt to fake humility.

“If CPM really means change, it should start with the resignation of Pinarayi Vijayan as opposition leader and M V Govindan as party state secretary. Any attempt at correction without removing those who led the party to this debacle will be futile,” said political scientist G Gopakumar. He added that CPM must first start respecting the democratic rights of people and other parties, and only then overhaul the policies and programmes it hopes to sell to civil society at large.

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