Communist Party of India (Marxist) has always shunned its expelled members and traditionally its expelled members do not do well! However, A.P. Abdullakutty, CPM's two-term MP from Kannur seems to be an exception. Abdullakutty was expelled from the party for anti-party activities  - for praising Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and for his religious sojourns to Mecca and to Vaitheeswaran Koil in Tamil Nadu, the seat of Nadi astrology.  In Kerala, a CPM activist is considered as an outcast once the party sacks him. However, Abdullakutty is not going the way of his predecessors, who have faded after they were ripped off party cadre's backing.

According to a report in Malayala Manorama, a Malayalam daily, the MP from Kannur, the Communist bastion where portraits of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro lining the roadsides, has addressed 117 public rallies against the Communist party during the run up to Thursday's parliament elections in the state. He has even invented a new expansion for the state-ruling CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF). "Don't you know that LDF has changed its name to Lavalin Democratic Front," he said at a rally in Thiruvananthapuram referring to the SNC Lavlin bribery case in which CPM secretary Pinarayi Vijayan was an accused.  Abdullakutty, a fiery speaker in Malayalam, did not miss any chance to lash out at CPM general secretary Prakash Karat and even late party veteran Harkishen Singh Surjeet. "You think of Surjeet (who was behind the Left's decision to join hands with the Congress to defeat the BJP) and vote for Congress... When we (the CPM MPs) went to Delhi, both Surjeet and Karat asked us to leave the anti-Congress feelings and support Sonia Gandhi," he  said reminding the voters that both Surjeet and Karat always voted for Congress in New Delhi. (In Delhi, the electoral battle is between the Congress and the BJP).

Abdullakutty was one of the three causalities the CPM had on the eve of 2009 elections. It also had to expel Lok Sabha member from West Bengal's Katwa Abu Ayesh Mondal, who later joined its archrival in the state Trinamool Congress. Party leaders privately admit that the expulsion of two Muslim MPs at a time the party was aggressively wooing the Muslims, has been a major setback. It also had to sacrifice another minority face - a Christian minister in the Kerala government Mathew T Thomas belonging to Janata Dal(Secular), who had to quit the ministry during a squabble over seat sharing.