The Lok Sabha poll results bring no cheer to both the leading political fronts in Kerala. The UDF is the biggest loser after it was forced to restrict its final tally to 12 from 16. The LDF lost a couple of prestigeous fights and the drubbing it received at Kollam where the only Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) who contested had to taste defeat at the hands of a former front constituent.
It was a strategic mistake to allow RSP to leave the Left Democratic Front, one can say with hindsight .However, there was no erosion of its vote bank especially in Vadakara constituency (where the murder of RMP Leader T P Chandrasekharan was expected to have a fallout ) where the Union Minister of state Mullappally ramachandran scraped thorugh with around 4000 votes.
For the Congress , the humiliation is high in the case of Mr P C Chacko who shifted from his sitting seat of Thrissur to Chalakudy displacing K P Dhanapalan and the party lost both. LDF tasted sweet revenge in ousting Chacko at the hands of film comedian Innocent who registered an impressive victory.
The battle royale in the Thirvananthapuram constituency had all the drama of a cliff hanger and it is the accretion of strength by consolidation of the forward communities votes with those of the Ezava population which helped BJP to register such a good performance at the cost of the LDF. The widely touted Christian-Nadar vote consolidation was not able to impact the final outcome through.
The loss of Idukki seat was a telling comment on the wrong policies of the UDF in the backdrop of the Kasturi Rangan Committee report on Western Ghats. A new comer cornered the glory and the UDF had to concede its traditional seat to the opposition front.
The drubbing received by M P Veerendra Kumar of Janata Dal (Secular) at the hands of sitting MP MB Rajesh of CPI(M) at Palakkad is another notable point . But Kerala voters can draw solace from the fact that they were also in some way aligned with the average national voter -- the BJP vote share has almost doubled -- who increasingly turned for the Modi factor.
