Nearly nine years after their founder and stalwart leader was hacked to death on May 4, 2012, the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) could probably give a befitting political reply to their arch rival Communist Party of India (CPI-M) when the results of the April 6 election to the Kerala Assembly would be declared on May 2.
File photo
Kozhikode:
K K Rema, wife of slain T P Chandrasekaran, founder of RMP, a splinter group of the CPI-M, is contesting in Vadakara Assembly constituency.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front(UDF) had declared its open support to the RMP nominee.
It's only in Vadakara assembly constituency that the UDF has not fielded its candidate but gave support to an outsider of their coalition.
It is not an election but a mission for the RMP to defeat the CPI-M led Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate. The Congress and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has been putting pressure on the RMP leadership to put up a common candidate to take on the LDF.
But initially, Rema was reluctant to contest. Consequently, the Congress decided to take back the seat offered to RMP, if Rema is not in the fray. Consequent to this, the RMP leadership decided and declared the candidature of Rema the other day.
It is a symbolic revenge for the RMP against the killers of their founder and stalwart Chandrasekharan.
A former DYFI Kozhikode District Secretary and a CPI-M member T P Chandrasekharan of Onjiyam in Vadakara near here had formed a splinter party called the RMP, in 2009.
But the 51-year politician, popularity known as TP, was murdered in cold blood three years after he quit CPI-M.
The RMP commander was brutally hacked to death on May 4, 2012, by a group comprising and conspired allegedly by the CPI-M. He had 51 wounds on his body.
Though the conspirators went scot-free, as many as 11 accused, including three Marxist party members were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Following TP's death, K K Rema, wife the slain leader, took the reins of the party. The party continued to maintain the alleged involvement of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other top CPI-M leaders in the murder.
Unlike others, the battle of ballot in Vadakara Assembly constituency is a special one. Not that the UDF has no candidate here which makes it special.
This is not the first time that the RMP is contesting in the democratic process. Apart from civic elections, the party had contested in elections to the legislative bodies also.
Soon after the party formation, T P contested in the Lok Sabha election in 2009 but lost. Later, Rema contested from Vadakara constituency in the Assembly election in 2016, but she lost in the poll.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the RMP supported the UDF candidate and defeated the LDF candidate.
The unification of the RMP with the UDF worked well in 2019 when Congress leader K. Muraleedaran defeated Marxist leader P Jayarajan for over 83,000 votes.
Now, the UDF is reciprocating the deal with the RMP by offering their support to RMP to take on their common enemy. The 2019 alignment of RMP with the UDF that yielded the desired result is reincarnated in the next month election.
Probably envisaging a set back, the CPI-M had conceded the constituency to one of its coalition partner, the Loktantrik Janata Dal.
LJD leader Maniyath Chandran is the LDF candidate. RMP would want to contest directly against a CPI-M nominee. However, winning the seat is not only prestigious but politically strategic for the RMP.
And, if things workout well for the RMP-UDF combine, it would be a political revenge for the RMP on their arch rival, the CPI-M. It's 42 days away to know whether Rema would make it to the Assembly and would fulfill their political revenge.
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