After the rout Congress in doldrums in Kerala

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Thiruvananthapuram: After its worst electoral rout in decades, the Congress in Kerala is in the doldrums.  Even the party high command appears to be clueless to hold the state unit together by enforcing a sense of order.

While the local media is rife with conflicting statements and accusations by leaders and functionaries on what went wrong and how to resurrect the party, frustration is fast seeping down the ranks.

In the past, Congress in Kerala had withstood many an electoral shock and bounced back, on the strength of its extensive organizational network. The state’s periodic swings between the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) held hope for the grand old party that electoral setbacks could be temporary. But the defeat this time around has been so stunning and disruptive that leaders are finding it hard to reconcile with the reality and move ahead.

The crux of the problem is a leadership deficit. The party had gone to the polls under former opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, KPCC president Mullapally Ramachandran and former chief minister Oommen Chandy.  A feeling down the party rungs is strong that the triumvirate had miserably failed to mount a credible challenge to the LDF led by the CPI(M) strongman Pinarayi Vijayan, who erased the state’s electoral history by securing a resounding repeat mandate of  99 seats in the 140-member Legislative Assembly.

In hindsight, it is obvious that the state leadership led the campaign leaning heavily on the traditional calculus of caste-communal configuration. They were also under the delusion that the state would ultimately live up to its reputation of alternating between the two coalitions every five years. Where it went wrong was to take seriously the strong welfarist-development plank on which the LDF fought the polls, and its acceptability among voters, cutting across social barriers amid the economic strife triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is in recognition of this fact that the party high command replaced Chennithala as the opposition leader in the state assembly, bringing in a younger V D Satheesan to the key slot. The Congress circles know that this signals the beginning of an organizational shake-up, with the KPCC president being next in the firing line. In heydays of the Congress, when the mighty high command dictated terms to state units, this process would have gone smooth. But the situation is not that easy now. 

Chennithala shot a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, pouring out his hurt feelings about how he was shown the door. Ramachandran also had conveyed his displeasure at putting the entire blame for the defeat on a few leaders, ignoring the collective failure of the party. The air is rent with the cacophony of leaders down the tier, and across the factional lines, indulging in slanging matches.

Though an organizational overhaul is clearly on the cards, that alone would not help the party to make a strong comeback. What is more important, according to observers, is regaining the eroded support base. Over the period, a section of the Congress’s traditional supporters has switched their loyalty to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Whether the incoming leadership would be able to win this section back is going to be crucial. Also, it is important to regain the trust of the Muslims, who in many parts of the state strategically had shifted their votes to the LDF.

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A mere organizational overhaul, with the induction of a set of younger leaders, alone need not help the party’s resurgence. A new work culture, transcending the group lines, should be adopted, and hard and dedicated workers need to be promoted at all levels. The party should function as strong but constructive opposition to the LDF regime, instead of its entire firepower on TV talk shows.

In normal circumstances, the BJP would have benefited from the plight of Congress.  Having come a cropper in the elections and failing to defend even the single-seat it held in the previous house, the saffron party is faced with a grim credibility crisis. It has also come under the cloud of election fund manipulations, besides the rampant factionalism turning murkier.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Kerala contributed 19 seats, out of the total 20,  to the Congress-led UPA. Along with its UDF ally, Congress then succeeded in gaining the total trust of the Muslim and Christian minorities, apart from retaining its political core,   by creating an impression that the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would fail to get a fresh mandate. 

The candidature of former AICC president Rahul Gandhi in the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, projected as a prime minister in the race, significantly helped the party then.  Will the party be able to match that performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls? Given the disarray that finds itself in it would not be easy, though 2024 is a pretty long way off as even the span of a few weeks could change the political dynamics.