High-octane campaign ends for all 20 LS seats in Kerala
For the LDF, the vote-share dropped nearly 4% and its candidate emerged triumphant only in one seat – Alappuzha
As curtains fell on the last day of public canvassing in Kerala on Wednesday before the state goes to vote in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections on April 26, all three political fronts – Congress-led United Democratic Front, Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance – appeared optimistic to gain big in the state’s 20 parliamentary constituencies. According to political experts and opinion polls, the UDF has an edge over the others in the polls this time.
The 2019 Lok Sabha elections, fought in the shadow of the agitation over entry of women in Sabarimala temple and the candidacy of then Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad, saw a landslide result in favour of the UDF in Kerala with the alliance notching over 47% votes and winning 19 of the 20 seats.
For the LDF, the vote-share dropped nearly 4% and its candidate emerged triumphant only in one seat – Alappuzha. As for the NDA, which picked up over 350 seats across the country, in Kerala, it was unable to open its account yet again despite a 4.8% rise in vote-share.
The 2024 election campaign in the state was marked by issues like the implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the Centre’s alleged mishandling of the ethnic riots in Manipur, the fraud at cooperative banks controlled by the CPI(M) in the state, sentiments of anti-incumbency against the LDF government, alleged non-performance of UDF MPs and the war of words between Rahul Gandhi and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Though both the CPI(M) and Congress are partners of the INDIA bloc at the national level and are fighting elections together in several states such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Rajasthan, they are part of rival LDF and UDF coalitions respectively in Kerala, a state whose politics has been largely bipolar in nature. The BJP, which has never won a Lok Sabha seat in the southern state, is a formidable force in at least half a dozen constituencies, forcing triangular contests in these places.
Upper-hand for UDF
Most opinion polls have given an edge for the UDF in the state with the number of seats varying in different polls. While an ABP News-CVoter poll predicted all 20 seats for the UDF, the Mathrubhumi News-P MARQ survey gave it 14 seats with five seats going to the LDF. The NDA is predicted to get one seat as per the latter.
The trend in Lok Sabha elections since 1956 when Kerala was formed has been that Congress-led alliances have been far more successful than those led by the Communist parties. In the 17 general elections held so far in the state, the Congress-led alliances have won more seats than the Left in 13 of them. The explanation has often been that the Congress, compared to the Left which is only present in a few states, is better placed to form governments at the Centre. However, the voting pattern changes completely in assembly elections in which the Left have had reasonable success. An example is when the LDF returned to power in Kerala with 99 seats out of 140 in the assembly in 2021, just two years after the coalition lost 19 of the 20 seats it contested in the Lok Sabha polls.
Like 2019, the UDF this time also enjoys the advantage that it is not in power either in the state or the Centre and therefore faces no anti-incumbency. However, by fielding 18 of its 19 sitting MPs, the UDF has exposed some of its MPs to allegations of non-performance in Parliament and in their respective constituencies, according to political experts.
Political analyst Asharaf A who is also the head of the department of Islamic and West Asian studies at Kerala University, said that UDF “definitely has the upper hand” in the elections.
“They have the support of a section of Christians and Muslims, key minority demographics in the state. But there is a feeling within the Muslim community that the performance of some of its MPs has not been good particularly with respect to minority issues. So the contests in those constituencies will be tighter,” he said.
He added that the minority consolidation behind the UDF, like in 2019, will not repeat this time. “Many of the minorities believe that there should be more Left MPs in Parliament as a strong voice from Kerala. So the Left will certainly improve its tally,” he said.
All eyes on BJP’s vote-share
The key question that did the rounds of this election campaign was around the BJP’s vote-share and how its rise or fall could impact the other two political fronts.
While BJP has never won a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, the votes it gets often decides the fortunes of the UDF and LDF candidates. In 2019 polls, the party saw a big jump in its vote-shares in some constituencies like Thrissur, Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, Palakkad, Attingal and Thiruvananthapuram.
In Attingal for example, a CPI(M) area secretary, who did not want to be named, said: “The BJP candidate in 2019 Sobha Surendran made significant inroads into the LDF’s Ezhava vote-bank, resulting in the victory of the Congress candidate there”. “In the backdrop of the Sabarimala protests, there was an erosion of our Hindu vote-base to the BJP and to the Congress. This time, we are expecting the return of all those votes,” he said.
Indications on the ground also suggest that the BJP’s inroads into communities like Ezhava, a strong votary of the CPI(M), will affect the LDF more than the UDF.
Another political analyst Sunnykutty Abraham said, “I doubt whether the BJP can actually win a seat in Kerala this time too. But yes, there could be a rise in their vote-share in the state.”
“It can be safely said that the Hindutva sentiment is slowly growing in the state. At the grassroot level, there are a lot of CPI(M) workers and sympathisers among whom such sentiments are present. They could either vote for BJP or UDF. The over-the-top agitation by the LDF on issues like CAA could also result in loss of their primary Hindu vote base to parties like BJP,” he added.
