A bare legislative majority based on an expedient coalition of parties can hardly be the basis for a new government undertaking any radical restructuring of a State's political economy. In the 2011 Assembly election, Kerala voters clearly wanted an improvement in the creation of infrastructure and in the delivery of services — but not a complete change of course after five years under the government of the Left Democratic Front headed by the Communist Party of India(Marxist). The Congress-led United Democratic Front needs to try and build on the achievements of the outgoing V.S. Achuthanandan government, bridging the shortfalls in social welfare measures and hastening the completion of development projects. The UDF owed its narrow 72-68 victory in the 140-seat Assembly to the strong showing of the Muslim League, which won 20 seats, and the Kerala Congress (M), a party seeking to represent Christians, which took nine seats. The consolidation of Muslim and Christian votes, and the consequent pressures these two sectional parties could bring to bear on the Congress, are likely to pose difficulties in governance for the UDF. Like the CPI(M) in Kerala, the State Congress is faction-ridden. This UDF dispensation will, of necessity, be a balancing act, accommodating the demands of competing sections and, to an extent, conflicting interests. The danger is that in such circumstances political survival can become an end in itself.
The long-term challenge in Kerala — way and ahead India's socially most advanced State, the one State where programmes of mass employment can draw on the talents of an educated and skilled workforce — is to develop the material forces of production. This means diversifying and bringing value addition to agriculture, discovering new sources for knowledge-based, high-tech, and sustainable industrialisation, and creating suitable employment opportunities. In the social sector, the immediate need is to restore the State's famous universal Public Distribution System — which succeeded in raising the nutritional status of a whole generation but has been unfortunately replaced by a targeted system — and to find the resources to finance this re-universalisation. Building a system of universal health care will be another challenge. The UDF would do well to be modest in victory, and reach out to an opposition that is strong, active, and in good spirit as a result of the remarkable late surge created by Chief Minister Achuthanandan's anti-corruption campaign. In keeping with the character of its mandate, the UDF government must strive for a political consensus on how to move Kerala on to a higher growth trajectory while retaining and strengthening its advanced social sector.
