What’s the point in putting up a brave face when you have ceded your citadel, asks a Congress leader, exasperation palpable in his voice.
The rhetorical question is what the political affairs committee of the Congress will be grappling with when it meets on Thursday to discuss the outcome the local body polls in which major strongholds of the United Democratic Front(UDF) in central Kerala gave way.
“It’s unprecedented that the Left Democratic Front (LDF) has pipped us in the Pala municipality and in six of the eight panchayats that are part of the Puthupally Assembly constituency held by Oommen Chandy for half a century,” says the Congress leader. Senior leader V.D. Satheesan thinks that it is the ‘organisational weakness’ that has impacted the party in all districts except Ernakulam and Malappuram, where along with the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) it made a clean sweep.
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“The decision to sever ties with the Jose K. Mani faction of the Kerala Congress (M) was short-sighted and ill-informed, he maintains. K. Muraleedharan, MP, echoes the sentiment of United Democratic Front leaders P.K. Kunhalikkutty and P.J. Joseph when he says the Congress and the UDF are far from united.
“Wrong alliances, factionalism in deciding candidature and Congress State chief president Mullappally Ramachandran’s needless remarks on [the tacit understanding with] the Welfare Party of India put us on the back foot,” he told The Hindu .
Almost routed in south Kerala, the face-saver for the alliance is the win in 45 of the State’s 86 municipalities, but there too, it has lost about 150 wards in comparison with the 2015 results.
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Left wave
For the Left Democratic Front, which found itself up against wall fighting a slew of charges going to the polls, the campaign surrounding the State’s track record in governance and welfare measures, especially in the fields of education and health, through the LIFE Mission and in times of disasters, helped in a big way.
While its strength in rural areas remained largely intact, there was an erosion of Left votes in the municipalities. However, the front looked set to clinch municipalities such as Nilambur with the support of Independent candidates.
In prestigious contests such as the one in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, Kottayam district panchayat, Pathanamthitta municipality, Onchiyam panchayat in Kannur and in Kasaragod, the front put up a good show thanks to meticulous electioneering, giving room for alliance partners and strong Independents. “But there’s a need for the CPI(M) to guard its urban strongholds against the onslaught of the BJP,” says a party leader.
“In Thiruvananthapuram, the rise of the BJP even in the rural areas, in the Kallikkad panchayat, to name one, remains a cause for concern. But it’s a stellar performance given the challenges, as the alliance has won over 10,000 seats like last time, surmounted the challenge in the Thrissur Corporation and emerged the single largest front in Kochi corporation,” he points out.
Lacklustre show
It is a lacklustre show by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which despite factionalism was hoping to get about 8,000 seats for the alliance led by it. As at 7 15 p.m., the tally for the BJP was 1,596, a marginal improvement from 1,223 secured by it in 2015.
While it won Pandalam municipality besides Palakkad, its seat share in district panchayats dipped from three to two. The party fought rebel menace to emerge a close second in some urban local bodies such as Kodungallur and Varkala, but its hopes for a win in Thrissur remains stillborn.