Ramath Nath Kovind stands a good chance to be elected as the 14th President of India. The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) will cast their vote in favour of Meira Kumar.
The National Democratic Front (NDA) candidate will get only the vote of the lone Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member in the Assembly O. Rajagopal. These are foregone conclusions of Monday’s presidential election. Yet its Kerala leg will turn out to be significant because it once again validates the bipolar politics of the State.
It actually raises the bar for the BJP to crack Kerala’s coalition system despite the aggression its national leadership has shown in carving out political space here. The LDF and UDF partners have constantly taken an anti-BJP stance. The Kerala Congress (M), which broke away from the UDF soon after the Assembly election in May last, was perhaps the only political party with which the BJP might have thought it had an outside change as an ally.
But the Kerala Congress (M) has repeatedly displayed that it was tilted against the BJP. It off and on hobnobbing with the CPI(M) was a clear message, though it evoked severe reactions from the Congress leadership. Kerala Congress (M) leader K.M. Mani later shored up his position by announcing that his party will throw its weight behind Meira Kumar.
In the meantime, Mr. Mani did attend the midnight function convened by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to usher in the GST regime.
All arrangements have been made for the conduct of elections at the Kerala Legislative Assembly. the LDF and UDF together have 138 legislators. The 20 members of the Lok Sabha and nine members of the Rajya Sabha belong to either the UDF or the LDF. The results of the presidential elections will be announced on July 21.
