The Hindu : Front Page : Undercurrents may prove decisive

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 21, 2005

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Front Page

Undercurrents may prove decisive

C. Gouridasan Nair

Shrewd gamesmanship marked the bypoll rather than campaign issues

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The pattern of polling in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha byelection and the near-candid statements by two political heavyweights about what this election was all about appear to suggest that the bypoll outcome might have been decided largely by political undercurrents and shrewd gamesmanship rather than by overtly discussed campaign issues.

The leadership of the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) still insist that the bypoll was fought on issues and not on relative manipulative skills and it may ultimately turn out to be so, but what the BJP candidate C.K. Padmanabhan and the Democratic Indira Congress (DIC) leader K. Karunakaran had to say on Saturday on the subject seems to suggest otherwise. In a candid display of dismay and anger, Mr. Padmanabhan had stated that a portion of the RSS votes had been transferred to the UDF and another portion never got polled. On his part, Mr. Karunakaran went on record that this election was more about money power and caste and community mobilisation than anything else. The main strands of the battle of wits that this byelection was should be evident from these two statements.

RSS unhappy

There were evidences aplenty during the run-up to the November 18 poll to show that the RSS was unhappy with the State BJP leadership's ways and Mr. Padmanabhan's candidature and did not wish to endorse it. With his candid admission, Mr. Padmanabhan has confirmed what was just an allegation all along. But there may be more to it. It appears that in the just-concluded byelection, two major communities — Nairs and Christians — got swayed in favour of the UDF for two different reasons, which may have to do with the caste identity of the UDF candidate and that of the man who really led the UDF campaign, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.

The way the Neyyattinkara Bishop's House attack played itself out and the help that Congress leader Oscar Fernandez appears to have extended to the UDF during his visit to Kerala might all have played a part in this. Also, in many ways, a UDF win, if that happens, would also be proof that Mr. Chandy is the sharpest of them all when it comes to political game planning and management of interest groups. That the Nair establishment had rallied behind V.S. Sivakumar needs no reiteration. It must go to the credit of the LDF that it did not bother to play the communal card and chose somebody whose communal identity was never a talking point in the byelection.

This election is as much about the fortunes of the rival political formations as that of the DIC(K). If the LDF wins and moves ahead of its 2004 tally, the DIC(K) can rightfully claim credit for a fair portion of the success. But if the verdict is adverse and there is no forward movement in the number of LDF votes, there would be a large question mark over LDF-DIC(K) relations. Hence Mr. Karunakaran's veiled display of his worries. If, on the other hand, the LDF wins, even by a slender margin, it would mean that the public ire that was on view in the panchayat-municipal elections, has not died down.

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