Thiruvananthapuram: Brimming with enthusiasm after its stellar performance in the local body polls, the Congress in Kerala has started bracing for the Assembly elections, a couple of months away.
The palpable elation in the ranks, however, is not seen to the same degree among the party’s top and mid-rung leaders and functionaries. Most of them are visibly anxious about securing party tickets to contest the polls.
An electoral victory in Kerala would come as a small solace for the Congress’s national leadership after a string of defeats in northern states. Among the states heading to elections, apart from Assam, Kerala is the only state where the party is a key stakeholder. In West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the Congress has little at stake.
An electoral triumph in Kerala would also reinforce the party’s pre-eminent standing in the south, as it is already in power in Karnataka and Telangana.
Elections mark a season when a few faces bloom, and many others wilt. This is especially true in a party like the Congress, particularly when an electoral victory appears tantalisingly close after a decade out of power.
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The party high command, steered by Rahul Gandhi and his close confidants, has already held an initial round of meetings with senior state leaders in New Delhi.
The huddle, however, did not indicate how the party planned to proceed with candidate selection. Instead, all the top brass offered was the clichéd assurance that there would be proper representation for youth, women, and the less privileged.
It has, however, become clear that the party would go into the campaign without projecting a chief ministerial face.
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan is the front-runner for the top slot. Senior leader Ramesh Chennithala, however, has not given up hope. In between, sections within the Congress believe that the final choice could even fall on K.C. Venugopal, AICC general secretary in charge of organisation, should the high command be compelled to make a post-election choice.
State leaders also held a brainstorming session in Wayanad to fine-tune strategies to translate the local body poll victory into success in the high-stakes Assembly elections. Election strategist Sunil Kanugolu helmed the session, imparting a micro-managerial dimension to the exercise.
In the 2021 Assembly elections, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) contested 93 seats and had to settle for a dismal tally of 22 in the 140-member House. The key ally, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), contested 25 seats and won 15.
The LDF, under the leadership of Pinarayi Vijayan, returned to power with 99 seats. The BJP drew a blank, losing even the single seat it had won in 2016.
Electoral tides, however, turned in favour of the UDF in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with the front winning 18 of the 20 seats, leaving one each to the LDF (CPI-M) and the BJP. A string of Assembly by-polls also went in favour of the UDF.
The loss in the Lok Sabha polls did not shatter the morale of the LDF as much as the local body polls last month, as the Congress has traditionally performed well in most national elections in the state.
The Congress is likely to retain most of its sitting MLAs, except Rahul Mamkootathil, who is facing serious sexual offence charges. Mamkootathil entered the Assembly through a by-election in Palakkad.
Some sitting MPs are also aspiring to contest the Assembly elections, hoping to make it to the ministry in the event of a UDF victory. Indications from the party high command are that sitting MPs would not be fielded.
While Shashi Tharoor has often expressed his desire to play a key role in state politics, he has sufficiently alienated himself from the party to be considered for such an accommodation any longer.
This opens the field to several new entrants, including youth and women. However, candidate selection will be challenging, as winnability—rather than patronage—will be the prime criterion. Communal and community equations specific to each constituency will also need to be factored in.
The IUML, which demonstrated its unassailable standing in its strongholds in north Kerala, including Malappuram district, in the local body elections, is likely to demand a few more seats this time. The party is also eyeing a couple of seats in the south to establish itself as a pan-Kerala force rather than a Malabar-centric party.
Though there had been speculation that Kerala Congress (Mani), currently an LDF partner, would switch to the UDF, the party has ruled out such a move. The party retains influence in the Christian heartland of central Travancore, even as a Kerala Congress faction already exists within the UDF.
LDF deserter P.V. Anvar has moved to the UDF camp. The businessman-turned-politician has announced his candidature as a UDF nominee from a constituency in north Kerala.
Amid the rising political temperature, the state recently witnessed a failed attempt to engineer Hindu consolidation in favour of the LDF.
The move, scripted by Vellappally Natesan, general secretary of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam of the numerically strong Ezhava community, involved a proposal to forge cooperation with the Nair Service Society (NSS). The attempt fell flat after NSS general secretary G. Sukumaran Nair backed out following days of hesitation, calling it a political ploy that went against the organisation’s long-standing policy of equidistance.
Natesan’s proposal, which consumed hours of media airtime over an entire week, was widely seen as an LDF trap aimed at weaning sections of Hindu voters away from the UDF. The move came against the backdrop of a substantial Muslim-Christian consolidation in favour of the UDF, as reflected in the local body polls.
Significantly, Natesan was conferred the Padma Bhushan on the eve of Republic Day. The award, however, was a decision of the Union government and has no direct bearing on the UDF-LDF contest for power in Kerala.
