LDF maintains slender edge in Kerala, under-currents strong as run-up ends

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Thiruvananthapuram: The Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) is maintaining a slight edge over the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) as the campaign for April 6 voting to the Kerala Assembly drew to a close, after scaling up to its crescendo with top brass of the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) aggressively hitting the pitch in a bid to deny the ruling front a back-to-back victories.

Though most pollsters have forecast a clear win for the LDF based on surveys conducted before the campaign was half-way-through, seasoned observers, based on assessment the electorate’s mood, hold that the outcome will be too close to call as strong undercurrents could lash either way in the final hours before the polling gets under way.

Except in a handful of constituencies, the BJP is struggling behind the two coalitions and fighting hard even to defend the lone seat it won in 2016 polls. The party, with its minor allies, is expected to enhance the vote share.

In 2016, the LDF, which unseated the UDF living up to Kerala’s reputation of alternating between the two coalitions every five year, bagged 91 seats in the 140-member house.

One of the shortest campaigns state ever had, the Battle 2021 had been hectic nevertheless, giving the go by to the Covid-19 protocol in its outward vigour and convergence of crowd at rallies and road shows.

The run-up had been especially garrulous in the concluding phase with big shots of the BJP and the Congress, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former AICC president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Vadra mounting a tenacious attack on the LDF, and also on each other.

The LDF, under the undisputed leadership of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, had hit the campaign trail quite early, giving a run to rivals in terms of immense financial and human resources at its command.

This is for the first time in the politically hyper sensitive state that a coalition is going to polls by projecting a single leader as super-hero, which smacks of personality cult. The 75-year-old Vijayan had his clear stamp on the selection of his party contestants, as well as setting the context and themes of the electioneering.

With the tacit approval of the ‘captain’, the party had dropped four of its nominees in the outgoing cabinet, including self-righteous and vocal finance minister T M Thomas Isaac. Also, the assembly speaker and several senior district-level functionaries of the CPI (M) have been dumped, leaving them to silently suffer the humiliation.  The CPI(M) has fielded candidates in 86 seats, CPI in 25, Kerala Congress (Mani) faction in 12 and the rest allocated to small allies including the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Also Read: Kerala heading for a photo finish as UDF closes gap with LDF in last lap

The Congress, which heads the UDF, had a belated and slow start as it took unusually long to settle the internal squabbles and draw up the candidates’ list, leaving heartburns to scores of aspirants. 

Unlike the rival, the UDF is going to the polls without projecting any single leader as its chief ministerial face. In the event of a UDF victory, former chief minister Oommen Chandy is likely to emerge as the consensus choice for the top slot over the opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala. 

Despite its organizational weaknesses, the Congress campaign surged in the last lap.  Though he fared poorly in leadership ratings in surveys, Chennithla could make his presence felt prominently, hurling a host of serious allegations against the ruling dispensation like dubious entries in the electoral rolls, allegedly due to manipulations of the LDF cadres.  

The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the UDF’s second largest component, is expected to hold on its traditional strongholds like Malappuram district in north Kerala. While Congress is contesting in 93 seats, IUML is in fray in 27 seats leaving the rest to minor partners.

The LDF’s main campaign plank has been development and welfare. It hopes that the free ration and provision kit distributed through the Public Distribution System (PDS) when the pandemic financially wrecked the majority of people, and also prompt payment of enhanced social security doles to millions, will get paid off handsomely in the election. 

It looks forward to a repeat of the resounding victory clinched in the local body polls held a few months back. The Left campaign had to a great extent succeeded in deflecting the attention from the sensational gold smuggling case, which brought the government under a cloud, and the Sabarimala women entry issue. The Ayyappa temple issue turned large sections of the Hindus against the Left, and resulted in the rout of the coalition in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Also, positioning itself as a credible champion of secularism, the LDF expects it would be able to garner a chunk of minority votes, especially in the Muslim pockets outside the IUML bastions.

The assertiveness of the LDF till the campaign reached its mid-point had been largely based on the absence of a palpable anti-incumbency sentiment. The inability of the UDF to muster its full strength and strike hard at the foe enhanced the confidence of the LDF. But in the second half of the run-up, the UDF swung into action by putting up a matching performance spurring the dormant sentiments against the incumbent.

While the Congress list is flush with fresh and young faces it singularly failed in accommodating women, a severe shortcoming which Rahul Gandhi had to openly admit.

The BJP, which has been increasing its vote share steadily but slowly, is unlikely to pull off a miracle this time round too. The party, along with its minor allies, however, has turned the contest into a three-way race in a handful of seats.

The party’s state chief K Surendran is trying his luck from two constituencies—Manjeswaram in up-north bordering with Karnataka and Konni in the Travancore region, where Sabarimala temple is located.  Surendran had been the spearhead of the agitation against allowing women of menstruating age to worship at the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple. Reports, however, suggest that things are not rosy for him in Konni, while his prospects are better in Manjewsaram.

Other prominent BJP faces in the fray are ‘metroman’ E Sreedharan (Palakkad), former Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan (Nemom, the only seat BJP holds in the outgoing assembly), actor Suresh Gopi (Thrissur) and former DGP Jacob Thomas (Irinjalakkuda).