Pinarayi Vijayan’s style of functioning as Chief Minister reportedly came under attack at the Communist Party of India’s (CPI) leadership-level meetings which began in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday in the wake of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) debacle in the Assembly polls.

Meetings of the CPI State secretariat and the State executive were held on Wednesday.

Prior to the meetings, party State secretary Binoy Viswam told reporters that the CPI plans to move forward by learning from the defeat and correcting what needs to be corrected. "Defeat has no other name but defeat," he said.

“Nevertheless, the communist party and the LDF do not leave the field on being defeated. We will learn from the loss,” he said. He described Wednesday’s meetings as the first step towards assessing what went wrong.

At the next stage, the CPI will hold meetings in all the districts to assess the performance. Subsequently, the CPI State council will meet and discuss the findings, Mr. Viswam said, adding that his party intends a serious examination of where the lapses and shortcomings have occurred.

“Changes will be made wherever it is needed. What needs to be corrected will be corrected. The Communist Party and the LDF can only go forward. We will be with the people,” he said.

In the LDF’s tally of 35 seats, the CPI’s own stood at eight, which included three of its Ministers in the outgoing Left Democratic Front (LDF) government—P. Prasad, K. Rajan and G.R. Anil. CPI had won in Kanhangad (Govindan Pallikappil), Pattambi (Muhammed Muhassin), Ollur (K. Rajan), Nattika (Geetha Gopi), Kaipamangalam (K.K. Valsalaraj), Cherthala (P. Prasad), Punalur (C. Ajayaprasad) and Nedumangad (G.R. Anil).