Elections in Kerala have traditionally been a direct contest between two political fronts. This time, however, the state is witnessing a triangular contest for the first time with the Bharatiya Janata Party trying to carve out a space for itself by bringing the Hindus, who constitute nearly 54% of the electorate, under its umbrella.
For more than four decades, the Congress-led United Democratic Front and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front have taken turns ruling the state. Now, they are clueless about how the triangular contest will impact their prospects.
According to political analysts, even a minor increase in the BJP’s vote share could be crucial, especially given that the gap between the winner and the loser is generally very thin in Kerala. It was as low as 0.89% in the 2011 Assembly election, as the UDF came to power with a wafer-thin majority of just 72 seats in the 140-member assembly.
In several constituencies, victory was achieved by the narrowest of margins. A former minister scraped through by a margin of just 157 votes at Piravom in Ernakulam district. The margin of victory in three other constituencies was less than 500 votes. It was between 500 and 1,000 votes in five constituencies, and between 1,000 and 5,000 in 17 seats.
Gathering speed
The rival fronts are taking comfort from the fact that the BJP has never won an Assembly or Lok Sabha seat in Kerala. But at the same time, the rise in the BJP’s popularity since the emergence of Narendra Modi at the national level has forced the UDF and the LDF to take the BJP seriously.
The BJP had been contesting elections on its own in Kerala for the past four decades. This time, it has emerged as a force to be reckoned with after the party stitched together a third front with the help of certain caste organisations and splinter groups of parties from both the rival fronts.
The party’s alliance with Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam, an outfit of the lower Ezhava community, helped the BJP put up a terrific performance in the local body elections held in November last year – the party's best show since its electoral debut in the state in the 1980s. The BJP’s vote share touched an all-time high of 14% in that election.
Apart from pushing the UDF to third position in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and taking control of Palakkad municipality and about 14 village panchayats, the BJP also emerged as a kingmaker in several local bodies.
The BJP’s vote share has been steadily increasing over the years. It went up from 4.75% in the 2006 assembly elections to 6.03% in the 2011 polls. Similarly, it rose from 6.3% in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls to 10.3% in the 2014 general elections.
The local body elections also saw the BJP making inroads into new areas. Apart from increasing its vote shares in many assembly segments in its traditional strongholds of Thiruvananthapuram and Kasaragod, it secured more than 25,000 votes in about 25 assembly segments in Thrissur, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, and Kollam districts.
Special focus
The BJP hopes to do better this time as it has expanded the National Democratic Alliance with a couple of minor parties from both the UDF and the LDF. Strategists in both fronts concede that the presence of the NDA can tilt the electoral balance in several constituencies come voting day on May 16, even though parties in the alliance may not win a single seat.
While the NDA is fielding candidates in all 140 seats, the alliance is primarily focusing on 30 seats. These are mainly in the Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad districts bordering Tamil Nadu and Kasaragod district bordering Karnataka, where the party had either come second or a close third in a few seats in previous assembly elections.
The party had also finished first in four assembly segments in Thiruvananthapuram and second in two segments in Kasaragod in the last Lok Sabha elections.
Political analysts believe that the state will witness full-fledged triangular contests in many seats in these districts, complicating matters for both the Left and the Congress. They also do not rule out the possibility of the BJP emerging as a kingmaker, especially considering that some pre-poll surveys have predicted a neck-and-neck race. Almost all pre-poll surveys also say that the BJP will open its account in the Assembly this time.
Disgruntled electorate
While a couple of surveys have predicted one or two seats for the party, others have given them as many as five seats. Even if BJP wins two seats, it could be crucial should the election throw up a fractured verdict with neither front getting the majority to form a government.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy does not see any such possibility. He firmly believes that the BJP will not open its account in the state in the coming election and feels that the people of Kerala will never support the Hindutva ideology being pursued by the BJP.
“The biggest strength of Kerala is secularism and religious harmony,” said Chandy. “Though there is a possibility of political divide in the state, the secular minded people in the state will not allow the BJP to make electoral gains through divisive politics.”
However, political thinkers such as KN Panikkar think that there is space for a third force in Kerala politics as the number of people unhappy with both the UDF and the LDF has been swelling in the state. He said that the disenchantment has been growing because of changes that had taken place in the state during the last two decades.
In an article in The Hindu, Panikkar, a former Professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said:
Kerala has witnessed a sudden burgeoning of the lower middle class, whose craving for modernity has created a cultural crisis. Their logical destination is the BJP, but in the past they voted tactically for Congress in order to prevent the Left from coming to power. Now that the BJP is bidding for power, they have no reason to continue to support the Congress. A part of the upper-caste supporters of the Congress is likely to change its allegiance as well.
Political observers have no doubt that this desire for change will certainly help the BJP make inroads into Kerala in the longer run, but how much this will help the party in next month’s election is the key point that is currently being debated in political circles.