The nature of the payoff of the tactical local-level electoral adjustments between the Congress-led the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Welfare Party of India (WPI) of the Jamaat-e-Islami will be debated in the coming days. Be that as it may, the tie-up that continues to evoke divergent responses within the Congress leadership in the State has apparently turned advantageous to both sides in many parts of the Malabar region.
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The electoral outcome of the UDF-WPI adjustment in many parts of the region is keenly watched amid the differences between Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Mullappally Ramachandran and Congress MP K. Muraleedharan over the tie-up and the opposition from prominent pro-UDF Sunni faction. It is premature to say that the tie-up solely helped the UDF manage to perform well in the Malabar region, especially Kannur, Kasaragod and Malappuram.
The WPI has claimed that it managed to increase its tally from 41 wards in the 2015 local body elections to around 65 now. The most notable of the ‘success story’ of the tie-up is Mukkam municipality in Kozhikode which LDF had won in 2015 with the WPI support. Now the LDF and the UDF-WPI combine have won 15 seats each in the 33-member council, the other winners being two BJP-led National Democratic Alliance candidates and a IUML rebel candidate. The UDF captured from the LDF nearby Karassery and Kodiyathur panchayats where the WPI backed the UDF.
In Malappuram, the UDF recaptured the Koottilangadi grama panchayat from the LDF which won the local body with the WPI backing in 2015. The UDF’s recapture of the Parappul panchayat in the district is also seen as the result of the seat adjustment which the LDF termed as the UDF’s bonhomie with communal forces. Equally notable is the UDF’s recapture of Tirur municipality.
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The WPI will not miss an opportunity to boast that its support played a role in the UDF’s spectacular victory in the 55-member Kannur Corporation in which both the UDF and LDF had 27 seats each in 2015, with a Congress rebel-turned Independent member alternately helping each side to secure majority. Now the UDF secured 34 seats in the council and LDF 19.
The open differences within the Congress over whether or not WPI and its parent organisation Jamaat-e-Islami is communal are likely to continue in the coming days. In 2015 UDF accused the LDF of forging alliance with communal forces like the WPI. This time it is the turn of the UDF to be accused of 'communal blindness' by the LDF.