Accusations of vote-trading and tacit deals for cross-voting among key players are hotting up as campaign for byelection to five Assembly segments is gaining steam.
The United Democratic Front (UDF) fired its first salvo blaming the Left Democratic Front (LDF) of striking a quid pro quo deal with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to exchange its votes in Vattiyurkavu to ensure the victory of CPI(M) candidate K.U. Janeesh Kumar in Konni. This refrain would rent the air in other segments too once the campaign touches a frenetic pitch in the fortnight ahead.
The CPI(M) chose to retort guardedly by citing the `exposures’ of a regional BJP leader in Pala who had accused the district leadership of having a nexus with the UDF and had ironed out a vote-trading pact in aid of the Kerala Congress(M) candidate in the segment.
Enthused by the victory in Pala and the confidence of winning public appeal by fielding fresh faces, the LDF is facing the byelections with a renewed vigour and does not seem to be annoyed by such innuendos from rival camps.
The UDF does not foresee a spillover effect of Pala in any of the five segments and is hopeful of romping home comfortably, in spite of the bickerings over candidate selection in Vattiyurkavu and Konni. The vote-trading row triggered by the UDF in advance is seen as a calculative bid to stave off such accusations from the LDF and the BJP in advance and also mask the confusion over the selection of candidates.
Though the BJP leaders chose to put up a stiff resistance and questioned the veracity of the allegations, the rumblings over substituting district president S. Suresh for senior leader Kummanam Rajasekharan in Vattiyurkavu is far from over.
The decision to persuade State general secretary K. Surendran to contest from Konni allegedly against his will and again experiment Ravisha Tantri Kuntar in Manjeswaram ignoring the protests of local workers are far from over. Such dissensions are likely to debilitate the party’s prospects in all the three segments that the party has said are poised for a big win.
All the three main players are being forced to dedicate considerable campaign space and effort to explain that they are not party to any such deals and vehemently turn down such accusations. Still it is likely to dominate the remaining stretch of the campaign.
