In Poll Postmortem, CPM's Biggest Admission Is About Hindutva

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has formally adopted its Central Committee review of the 2026 Kerala Assembly election, and one line from the document has grabbed headlines: That the party allowed the campaign to become centered on then Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. But that is not the review's most significant conclusion. In a statement that smacked of defeat, the document read, "The party is not sufficiently equipped to counter the RSS-BJP Hindutva-communal-corporate propaganda".The admission is part of the party's "Review of Assembly Election Results", adopted at the Central Committee meeting held from July 11 to 13, 2026, after discussions in the Kerala state secretariat and state committee. The party described the 2026 verdict as a "debacle" and said the defeat is "incomparable with any of our earlier defeats". It also acknowledged that the BJP's rise in Kerala was not just an electoral setback, but a warning that Hindutva has made deep inroads into a state long seen as the Left's strongest bastion.The emergence of the BJP as a force to reckon with "is a disturbing and challenging feature," the report said. The numbers reflected the concern. The NDA secured 14.2 per cent of the vote, while the BJP alone polled 11.42 per cent. The BJP won three assembly seats after drawing a blank in 2021 and finished second in six others.According to the CPM, this reflects the "growing communal influence" in Kerala, driven by the RSS's expanding presence through temple committees and its extensive shakha network.But the review does not stop at identifying the BJP's growth. It also acknowledges that the CPM itself contributed to a perception that it had softened its stand against Hindutva.One of the strongest criticisms is directed at the Global Ayyappa Sangamam, where a message from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was read out by a Kerala minister, who is also a member of the CPM state secretariat. The review called it a "major embarrassment" to the party's secular image, maintaining that it created the impression that the CPM was "soft towards Hindutva communal forces".The document also admitted that the party's response to anti-Muslim remarks by SNDP Yogam General Secretary Vellappally Natesan was not strong enough. It conceded that the controversy surrounding the PM-SHRI scheme helped strengthen the UDF's campaign that the Left had an "undercurrent" of understanding with the BJP.Taken together, the review said these mistakes created the impression that the party was compromising in its fight against communalism.The document was equally candid about the RSS's organisational expansion. It said the Sangh has significantly strengthened its activities around temples, mobilised women, and increasingly brought young women into its organisational and political work. This trend, the party admitted, was identified earlier but it had failed to respond effectively.Seen in that context, the discussion about a Pinarayi Vijayan-centric campaign is only part of the story. The review argued that excessive focus on one individual caused the party to lose the political initiative. But its larger concern is that while the CPM was fighting the election on one front, the BJP was steadily expanding its ideological and organisational influence across Kerala.The bickering within the party was exposed by what the review called "parliamentary opportunities" -- connecting incidents of rebels contesting in Communist citadels and winning it, displacing cadre leaders. Admitting the erosion of its base, the document tagged it as a "gap" between the leadership and the "rank and file of the party".The party will now hold an extended state committee meeting in September to discuss the findings. But one conclusion is already on record. The CPM believes its biggest defeat was not electoral but its failure to counter the growing influence of Hindutva in a state it once considered its strongest ideological fortress.