Kerala’s Left family feud: CPI vs CPI(M) — same script, new actors

Synopsis: Over the past decade — from the euphoric dawn of Pinarayi Vijayan’s first term in 2016 to the fiscal tightrope walk of 2025 — the CPI(M) has repeatedly overridden the reservations of its junior ally, the CPI, on key policy decisions.

In Kerala’s Left Democratic Front (LDF), history seems to be repeating itself — only the characters have changed.

Sixteen years after CPI’s then state secretary Veliyam Bhargavan thundered that there was no meaning to a Front “when one partner bullies the other into submission, another party secretary, Binoy Viswam, finds himself echoing the same frustration of his predecessor.

The faces have changed, but the sentiment hasn’t — the CPI(M) still stands accused of playing the big brother.

A decade of uneasy companionship

Over the past decade — fr