Saffron push behind Left victory in Kerala

The saffron party, which has been leaving no stone unturned to defeat just Congress, has no remorse in teaming up with anybody for this purpose. It was evident by the Sangh Parivar’s notorious bonhomie in Kashmir with the PDP, the party led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

Considering that, the CPM’s historic victory in Kerala’s assembly election is not a big deal for the Sangh Parivar forces. Nonetheless, that is not the case for Congress. Out of the five states where assembly polls were held, Kerala was the only state where the Congress party had a strong organizational base and had the possibility of coming to power. Given that former Congress president Rahul Gandhi was elected to Parliament from Wayanad in Kerala, the Modi-Shah duo rolled up their sleeves to defeat the Congress in Kerala. One of their strategies was to join hands with the enemy’s enemy and it was not the first time that the CPM joined hands with the Sangh Parivar. Their association started in 1977.

For Pinarayi Vijayan, continuity of his government was a necessity as he wanted to safeguard himself from cases such as gold smuggling and Lavalin. Hence, the election results reflected the secret mutual understanding between the CPM and the BJP. The understanding between CPM and BJP started long time ago. Moreover, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has never missed opportunities to praise Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Interestingly, the Left government had rolled out the red carpet for Home Minister Amit Shah prior to the official inauguration of Kannur Airport. Besides, RSS ideologue R Bala Shankar had also revealed a few days before the polls that there had been secret deals between the CPM and the BJP in many constituencies. The news about the discussion between Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Spiritual guide Sri M should also to be called into question. LDF Government's decision to allot four-acre land in Thiruvananthapuram for ten years lease to Sri M has triggered suspicion about the CPM-RSS nexus much before the elections. Meanwhile, just ahead of the polls, Modi's crony capitalist friend Gautam Adani's mysterious meeting with Pinarayi Vijayan in Kannur is also reinforcing suspicions of the secret deal.

On the other hand, central agencies, which have been investigating the gold smuggling and Life Mission cases have not taken any strong actions against the government, and the investigations seem to be put on the back burner currently. Interestingly, the SNC-Lavalin case, in which the CBI is challenging the acquittal of Pinarayi Vijayan and others has been adjourned 26 times in the Supreme Court in the past five years.

Apart from these, there were also reports that BJP activists remained mostly inactive in many constituencies on the polling day. All these factors indicate the CPI (M)-BJP undercurrent. While the CPI(M) gained most of the vote trade, the BJP lost its lone sitting seat of Nemom, with its voting percentage declining compared with that in the Lok Sabha elections.

Statistics showed major vote trading between the LDF and the BJP in more than 69 constituencies. While the Saffron party lost 4,35,606 votes, a decline of 3.71 per cent, this year compared with those in the last assembly elections held in 2016, the CPM and the Left front received the majority of these votes.

The BJP had high chances for winning in Nemom, Palakkad and Manjeswaram; however, the UDF candidates, who retained the party’s votes, blocked BJP’s victory in these constituencies. In all three cases, the CPI(M) lost votes, those were converted to BJP candidates. Nemom was the lone sitting seat of BJP, where Congress fielded a strong candidate and waged a fierce battle against the BJP. Congress candidate K. Muraleedharan defended the BJP by increasing the number of votes from 13,860 in 2016 to 36,524. Left candidate V.Shivankutty, who bagged 55,837 votes this year, in 2016, had got 58,192 votes. In Palakkad, BJP’s star candidate E. Sreedharan’s victory was thwarted by Congress’s Shafi Parampil. More than 2,242 CPM votes were converted to the BJP in this poll compared to those in 2016. In Manjeswaram, UDF candidate AKM Ashraf shattered the victory of BJP president K Surendran. The UDF gained 8,868 more votes than those in 2016 while the 1,926 CPM votes were gone to the BJP.

CPI (M) had played all dirty games to retain its power, including sabotaging the election process by colluding with their government employees union. The election results showed that all such efforts have been successful. Although the Congress had raised the issue of more than 4,34,000 bogus entries in the voters list and the issuance of more than one identity card, the Chief Electoral Officer unfortunately has not taken any stringent actions.

As per the rule, local agents of all political parties must be notified while receiving postal ballots. However, party agents of non-LDF fronts were not kept in the loop and the process was carried out with the help of presiding and polling officers having lenience towards the Left front. It was alleged that there were serious irregularities in distributing postal ballots to people above 80 years, physically challenged and COVID-19 patients, and in returning ballot papers to the Assistant Returning officer(ARO). Furthermore, many voters who applied for postal ballots did not receive them. Many people who were not able to reach polling booths due to physical disability were also denied votes and there were irregularities in collecting and handling postal ballots. These manipulations were taken place in the Revenue Election Division, which deployed only pro left officers.

This election, LDF spent Crores of rupees for campaigning, which was raised through the shadow of power. It is estimated that the Left candidates had spent over Rs 5 crore per constituency. Apart from these, the LDF splurged crores of rupees on advertisements in print and new media to bring media into the fold. As a result, the media was forced to broadcast pre-poll surveys in favor of the Left government. Through this, they intensify its propaganda and slogan of ‘Sure for LDF’.

Along with its opportunistic alliances and irregularities in the election process, the distribution of food kits and pensions had helped the Left government gains an upper hand in the elections. Even though there were scams and a lot of irregularities in the distribution of freebies, such schemes had a huge positive impact on the people, including poor as well as middle-class families. The food kit distribution helped the Left party come closer to housewives and other members of families, especially elders. Besides, the Left government also got a huge mileage from the distribution of welfare pensions without arrears. The deployment of CPM cadres for the distribution of welfare pensions has led to CPM local leaders establishing closer relationships not only with pensioners but also with their families; also, meetings of pensioners were widely convened to solicit votes. Besides, just ahead of the elections, the government disbursed two months’ pensions together. The floods and COVID-19 the crisis was a blessing in disguise for the chief minister as he effectively utilized them to enhance his and the government’s image, which had been tarnished due to various scams. Pinarayi Vijayan also presented himself as a pandemic slayer through the evening press conferences.

LDF’s second term in office would definitely be a complete 'Pinarayi Raj' for CPM and the Left front. Former Finance Minister Dr. Thomas Isaac and Public Works Minister G. Sudhakaran were the two ministers who ignored Pinarayi Vijayan's dictatorial style, leading to them being denied tickets, while powerful EP Jayarajan from the Kannur lobby was also dropped from the list. Besides, P Jayarajan and MV Jayarajan from the Kannur lobby, who had lined up strongly behind Pinarayi Vijayan, were also denied seats. Above all, Pinarayi Vijayan has also given a clear message to the party leaders by giving the Rajya Sabha seats to two of his close confidants by ignoring senior leaders without holding enough discussions within the party. In the last five years, the CPM had faced unprecedented allegations of corruption, nepotism, and scams. Despite the party deviating from its ideologies, the Politburo remained as a mere spectator, unable to question or correct their Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The second term of LDF would certainly lead to Pinarayi Vijayan becoming an unquestionable leader within the party.

(Writer is Director of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. Views are personal)