Thiruvananthapuram, July 13
Football is often celebrated as the ultimate team sport, built on discipline, coordination and respect for rules. No player, however talented, can win a match alone. Success depends on trust, teamwork and a shared commitment to a common goal.
It was this spirit that CPI(M) General Secretary M.A. Baby invoked during the party's recent Central Committee meeting in New Delhi when he reminded colleagues that "football is a team game" and progress comes through collective play rather than individual brilliance.
Coming from one of the party's best-known football enthusiasts who travelled to Kolkata years ago to watch Lionel Messi in action, the metaphor carried significance beyond sport.
Yet the comparison also highlights a question confronting the CPI(M) -- Is the party adhering to the collective principles it advocates?
The popular football phrase "Bend It Like Beckham" celebrates David Beckham's extraordinary ability to curl the ball while remaining within the laws of the game.
The phrase has entered popular culture as a symbol of mastering the rules, not escaping them. The CPI(M), however, now finds itself confronting a different question. Is it bending its own rules to accommodate one leader?
Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan, now 82, continues to enjoy exemptions that no other senior leader currently receives. The party's informal age norm of 75 for key organisational responsibilities has been relaxed in his case ever since he assumed office as Kerala Chief Minister in 2016.
Even after the Left's debacle in the 2026 Assembly elections, the Central Committee has decided against replacing him as Leader of the Opposition, arguing that an immediate change could further unsettle the organisation.
That decision may well have strategic merit.
But it has inevitably revived questions about consistency within a party that has traditionally projected itself as one governed by collective discipline rather than individual indispensability.
Ironically, Baby's football lesson arrives at a moment when the Central Committee itself is debating whether the party has drifted away from collective functioning. Several leaders have reportedly criticised arrogance, poor communication with cadres and an over-centralised style of leadership as key reasons for the electoral debacle.
Football rewards teamwork. Politics, particularly communist politics, has historically claimed to do the same.
Whether the CPI(M) can rediscover that ethos or whether its rules continue to be interpreted differently for its tallest leader may determine whether Baby's football analogy becomes a blueprint for revival or merely another memorable quote from a difficult introspection.
This approach keeps the piece firmly in the realm of political commentary, using Baby's football metaphor as the narrative thread while allowing readers to draw their own conclusions about Pinarayi Vijayan's continued exemption.
