Kerala Assembly polls: It’s an unfamiliar suspense this time

As the campaign peaks for the April 6 assembly elections in Kerala, CL Manoj takes a look at the players and issues in the battle for the southern state

Battle of Coalitions
Electoral battles in Kerala have seen a saga of alternating political coalitions since the state’s politics broadly compartmentalised into the CPM-led Left Democratic Front and Congress-led United Democratic Front in 1980, after several electoral permutations and social combinations. Many smaller parties have switched fronts, but the CPM led LDF and Congress-led UDF represent the two poles of Kerala’s political and ideological divide. Kerala’s predictable dethroning of the incumbent coalitions has not looked so vulnerable a trend this year though.

LDF’s Psychological Edge
The results of the closely fought local body elections in Kerala a few months ago saw LDF win majority of panchayats and urban bodies, suggesting that voters shrugged off a series of corruption charges against Pinarayi Vijayan’s LDF regime. While LDF is busy consolidating its psychological edge, UDF is fighting to regain lost ground in the perception battle. Narrow margins by which many seats are traditionally won and the deceptive social undercurrents keep all sides guessing though many opinion polls put LDF ahead.


UDF Canvas The Congress-led
UDF had a poor start, failing to match expectations in local body polls, losing KC(M), having factional feuds during candidate selection and pre-poll desertions. But Congress leaders realise that a defeat this time can be its undoing with many on the prowl to occupy its space. The UDF is attempting a last-ditch fight back in the perception battle. Pushed to the wall, it used the Sabarimala plank to push the LDF to a tight corner on ‘Hindu sentiments.’ The front is also experimenting with a crop of relatively younger candidates and has unrolled manifesto promises aimed at outmatching the populist reach of LDF’s welfare schemes. It is also working hard to retain its traditional hold in minority segments even while trying to fuel the alleged scams against the LDF regime. But the most crucial question will be whether Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala will be able to get the factions to close ranks and ignite a collective fight to galvanise its rainbow social constituency.

Leftist Pitch
LDF is banking on its expansive social welfare schemes, including enhanced multiple monthly pensions that reach all critical social and electoral segments. It is also hard selling its provisioning of free ‘food kits’ during lockdown and how it tackled two rounds of floods and the Nipah virus outbreak before Covid-19. LDF is also attempting to reach out to some sections of Christians: It has admitted UDF constituent Kerala Congress (Mani), which enjoys support among sections of Catholics and cultivated the Orthodox church. It has also projected Vijayan as a ‘strong leader’ even though many party contemporaries have been clinically sidelined in the leadership and candidate selection. CPM is also making a bid to appease Hindu sections by targeting the politics of Congress ally, the Indian Union Muslim League.

The Third Suitor
The BJP, the third suitor of the Kerala electorate, faces the challenge of transforming itself from a party with ‘growing vote percentage’ to that which can win seats by cutting through the LDF-UDF fight. The state BJP is again trying to play up ‘the Modi factor,’ more so as it lacks a leader of overreaching mass appeal who can unite the factions. Yet, BJP leaders argue the party’s growing vote percentage has been testimony to the Kerala voters’ growing fatigue with the LDF and UDF. With a handful of smaller allies, BJP has also been trying to cultivate a larger Hindu space by alleging minorities have the dominant say during the LDF-UDF regimes. The party has also put up high-profile candidates, including ‘Metroman’ E Sreedharan, while trying to wrest the Sabarimala plank it lost to the UDF. BJP’s ambition is to win at least half a dozen seats at the cost of the Congress and to make it a hung assembly and open up future space. As in the past, the challenge of the BJP in Kerala will be to make the electorate walk the party’s talk.