: Seldom have Assembly elections in Kerala acquired the dimensions of a watershed event. The question that awaits an answer as the State goes for polling on Monday is whether this would be a watershed year in Kerala’s electoral history.
For the first time in the State’s electoral history, there is somewhat of a real three-way divide in the poll fray. However, still it is essentially a battle between the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF), with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) combine emerging as possible spoilers in many places, with the potential to spring a surprise in a few constituencies. Political Kerala would remain true to its electoral history if the LDF wins, a case of the voters’ urge for change of guard at the State government Secretariat here every five years. But, there is also the equally possible scenario of the UDF retaining power and the BJP making its first bow in the State Assembly. Therefore, what the current round of elections boil down to is the question whether the State would stick to the familiar patterns of poll history or whether it would throw up that rare watershed moment.
The LDF has a made a strong case for itself, campaigning hard over the issue of corruption against the ruling alliance and the ‘fascist threat’ and communalisation of society and politics by the BJP-led alliance. In so far as the LDF is concerned, the fundamental difference between the 2006 and 2011 Assembly elections is the absence of acrimony in the CPI(M) over who should lead the alliance. The CPI(M) leadership was successful in pushing that issue to the back-burner and putting up a united front, warts and all, when taking on the UDF where the fault lines are equally evident. Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan was at the helm of the LDF campaign, though not in the same measure as in 2006 or 2011. Still, he was able to pursue Chief Minister Oommen Chandy every inch of the way, with sharp posers and searing accusations. Events that unfolded during the campaign, from the Dalit law student’s gruesome murder to the latest ‘disclosures’ by solar scam accused Saritha S. Nair, also gave the LDF enough ammunition to put the UDF on the defensive.
Credibility factor
The UDF’s success lay in preventing to a large extent any massive anti-government wave. Its campaign was led exclusively by Mr. Chandy, who assumed the role of a playmaker, raising issues that were inconvenient to the Opposition and engaging his rivals, particularly Mr. Achuthanandan, in debates on a host of issues. His main campaign theme was the by-now-familiar ‘development with care’ which he was never tired of talking about at his campaign speeches. He and other UDF leaders, barring KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran, were careful not to allow the discussion drift towards the bar bribery row, but when he did hit on the subject, he did it with panache, ripping open the confusion and divergence in the LDF over the question of prohibition. Despite all this, there is a big odd that the UDF faces: that of credibility. How it fares in the elections would to a great extent depend on whether it could make itself heard sufficiently convincingly over the din raised by the LDF and the BJP-BDJS combine.
Minority votes
On its part, the BJP-led NDA had marshalled money and manpower in ample measure to make it visible like never before, with none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving it the big push towards the end of the campaign. The Modi-Sonia face-off was the high point of the campaign this time and would have touched chords that were otherwise quiescent till then. On a larger plane, this election could be a significant marker for the manner in which the votes of the minority communities, constituting 40 per cent of the population by 2011 Census, behave in the context of the perceived surge of the BJP. Unlike in the past, Muslim outfits have been cautious in their utterances this time and there is every indication of a hardening of the minority votes in favour of the UDF and the LDF, perhaps in that order, in different constituencies.
Community votes
What the BJP-BDJS combine appears to have done is to stake claim to a much bigger share than ever before of the anti-government votes and to capitalize on a possible voter fatigue with both the UDF and the LDF. But the success of its strategy would depend on the ratio at which the anti-UDF votes get split. If the ratio favours the LDF, it would be a case of a massive effort by the BJP going waste. That is perhaps where the tie-up with the Ezhava-driven BDJS could prove a huge boon for the BJP. Theoretically, the BJP’s seemingly excessive dependence on the BDJS can have negative fallout as well. For one, it could alienate the Nair votes. Whether that would be the case would depend on whether the BJP has been able to create enough momentum to motivate the aspiration-driven middle class Hindu voters to stand by it. The BDJS is led by the creamy layer of the Ezhava community and that raises the question whether it would be identity-linked aspirations or class differences that would get greater play in the voting behaviour of community members. That the BJP has not been able to shake off the accusation of a nexus with the UDF in some key constituencies is also of significance this poll season.
These elections were far more constituency specific than ever before, with incumbents trying to ward off challenge from pretenders citing the many things they had done over the past five years. One consequence of this seemingly new phenomenon is the slow erosion of political content from the election debate, the many issues that popped up over the past two months notwithstanding, particularly in the social media platforms which have now become more real than virtual when it comes to communication of the political message.
