What is the reigning theme of this round of Lok Sabha elections in Kerala? Price rise and the many ills of UPA’s neo-liberal governance agenda? Politics of violence and challenges to State’s development? Political and policy drift at the Centre and in the State? Many of these, of course, are key issues being talked about out there, but the reigning theme, regardless of how it matters to the population across the State, is the Kasturirangan Committee recommendations and its aftermath.
If the Lok Sabha elections were held three months ago, the reigning theme would have been the ‘solar scam’ with its devastating implications for the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF). The Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) was on the offensive, launching a series of agitations across the State, and the UDF itself was in disarray over the issue. Then came the huge row over the Kasturirangan Committee recommendations and political Kerala was thrown into the vortex of a series of agitations that spread like wildfire in the higher reaches of the State. Kerala has not looked back after that.
The settler community’s rejection of K. Kasturirangan High Level Working Group Report (HLWG) on Western Ghats as anti-farmer had the UDF caught in a white-knuckle roller coaster ride to the Lok Sabha polls. The big question now is whether the furore would help the LDF reap electoral dividends comparable to what it would have perhaps made from the solar scam and the attendant furore.
The high ranges erupted in protest against the Kasturirangan report beginning November 13, 2013, the day on which the Office the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) issued an Office memorandum declaring 123 villages in the State as Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs). There was mob violence at Thamarassery and a State-wide hartal called by the LDF. The High Range Protection Council organised a 48-hour road blockade in Idukki. The situation returned to seeming normality only when the MoEF issued a draft notification on March 10 incorporating the State’s proposal to trim ESA from 13,108 sq km to 9993.7 sq km. Although the notification has doused settler farmer community’s anger somewhat, the UDF is painfully aware of the embers smouldering in the higher reaches.
Focus on high ranges
The constituencies where the farmers’ anger can have electoral implications are Idukki, Wayanad, Vadakara and Kozhikode. In Idukki, the interplay of the personal and political had resulted in incumbent P.T. Thomas being kept out of the Congress’ candidate list. In Wayanad, the Congress has persisted with incumbent M.I. Shanavas, but there are strong worries for the UDF here, with sections within the Congress using the local people’s ire to trigger undercurrents against their own candidate.
In Idukki, the LDF had used the issue to field Joyce George, legal adviser to the High Range Protection Council, as its candidate, even as the Council named him as its candidate. The question whose candidate Mr. George is still hanging fire in the constituency and the State’s political scene. However, the strategy has helped the LDF to reach out to minority Christian community in the high ranges in a big way. There are, however, strong critics of the LDF stand who feel that the CPI(M) and its allies should have stuck with the Gadgil Committee report rather than the watered down version of the Kasturirangan report.
Poll observers say the LDF could have dominated the elections had it been declared three months ago, when the Opposition campaign over the ‘solar scam’ was at its peak. The scam, they say, has now been reduced to a morally unpalatable aside, while the Kasturirangan issue is right there at the centre of the political debate as something that concerns bread and butter issues.
