{"id":258938,"date":"2015-11-13T17:18:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T11:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=258938"},"modified":"2015-11-13T17:18:47","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T11:48:47","slug":"red-wave-in-kerala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/red-wave-in-kerala\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Red\u2019 Wave in Kerala"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Left
Left swing<\/strong> The resurgence of the LDF in the state will prove to be a nightmare for the current UDF government. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Photo: VV Biju<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe mood was sombre outside AKG Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, the state headquarters of the CPM, in the wee hours of 7 November. The counting has not yet started for the local body elections in Kerala. Shortly after eight in the morning, news of the United Democratic Front (UDF) win in Pathanamthitta spread a palpable gloom on some faces outside the centre. However, the sad faces turned cheerful when a few minutes later reports started to trickle in that the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) was leading in many of the municipal corporations including the state capital.
\n\u201cThis (result) would be historic for the LDF\u00a0and dismal for (Oommen) Chandy,\u201d says an ecstatic party worker. In an emphatic show of its electoral prowess, the LDF secured a big win by pocketing around 58 percent of local bodies this time. And thereby, announcing its dominance at the grassroots level in style.
\nFor the CPM, which received a lot of flak for its strategies in the past, the win is a huge relief and a morale booster before the state Assembly polls scheduled to be held early next year.
\nIt was after a decade of electoral debacles that the LDF\u00a0displayed a superior show this time. Since 2005, the LDF\u00a0has not gained anything significant in the state. Unlike the earlier elections, the factionalism, the root cause of CPM\u2019s flop shows, was not that much visible in the party ranks and hardly reflective in the selection of candidates. Moreover, the LDF\u2019s united stand against some of the incidents in the country such as rising intolerance, attacks on writers and beef controversy played a crucial role in their victory.
\nThe growing discomfiture of the minority communities towards the BJP\u00a0helped the LDF\u00a0secure many Muslim votes especially in many of the non-Muslim League pockets in north Kerala.
\nThe vigilance court observation that there are sufficient materials to prima facie make out a case against the state Finance Minister KM Mani in the bar bribery case also proved to be a boon for the CPM.
\nWith the fortunes favouring the CPM-led LDF\u00a0coalition, the front was able to wrest 549 of the 941 gram panchayats. They have also had a upper hand in 90 of the 152 block panchayats, 43 of the 87 municipalities and four of the six corporations in the state.
\nOn the other hand, the UDF\u00a0could win only 365 gram panchayats, 61 block panchayats, seven district panchayats, two corporation and 40 municipality wards. Adding to its woes, the ruling dispensation suffered a major setback in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, where it finished third to the BJP\u00a0and the LDF.
\nAs for the saffron party, it won 14 gram panchayats. However, the icing on the cake for the BJP\u00a0was its performance in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, where it took its tally to 34 seats from six in 2010 and finished second. It also emerged as the single largest party in the Palakkad Municipality. The party has also opened its account in the Kollam Corporation apart from making its presence felt in several municipalities.
\nThe CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said that this victory is a stern warning to the current UDF government. \u201cThe result shows that the people had voted to preserve secularism and against the communal propaganda of the BJP,\u201d said Kodiyeri. Former state home minister also wants Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to quit as he felt that the result is a referendum on the Chandy government.
\nDismissive of being worried about the BJP\u2019s surge in the state, Kodiyeri said that the leadership would certainly look into the BJP\u2019s share of votes in the elections but it is not at all worried about its electoral performance.
\nThe impressive show by the BJP\u00a0in the polls indicates that the party is gradually making deep inroads into the state, which has mostly been governed by the coalitions of the UDF\u00a0and the LDF.
\nThe BJP, aided by the RSS\u00a0machinery, has doubled its tally of seats and vote share and registered a significant impact in the state at the expense of the UDF.
\n
\nFrom the 480 wards that it had won in 2010, the BJP has taken a giant stride forward by bagging around 1,300 seats this time. The vote share of the party has also increased to 18 percent from 12, as was the case in the Lok Sabha election.
\nHowever, BJP\u2019s over-hyped electoral alliance with the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, an organisation of the Ezhava community, did not yield the desired results.
\nThe party has not been able to make any significant gains in the strongholds of Vellappally Natesan, the SNDP\u00a0general secretary, such as Kollam, Kottayam and Alappuzha. However, the party has been able to increase their vote share among the Nair and the Ezhava communities.
\n\u201cHad it not been for the beef ban and intra-party divisions, the BJP\u00a0would have got a far more favourable result,\u201d says Anil Sankar, a political observer.
\nNot getting carried away by the media portrayal of a Left wave in the state, Sankar says, \u201cThe reality is that the LDF got marginal gains in the rural areas, while the UDF\u00a0emerged strong in the urban landscapes. The Muslim minority voters largely went to the LDF\u00a0this time due to the beef row and incidents of rising intolerance.\u201d
\nMeanwhile, V Muraleedharan, BJP\u00a0state president, said that the outcome proves that the people have accepted the BJP\u00a0as an alternate political force in the coming days.
\n\u201cThe results indicate that the people had rejected the vilification campaign unleashed by the UDF\u00a0and the LDF\u00a0against the BJP. The outcome clearly shows that the BJP\u00a0has emerged as a decisive power in Kerala politics,\u201d said Muraleedharan.
\nThe results have greatly upset the UDF\u00a0especially Chandy, who pinned a lot of hopes on winning the local body elections. The defeat was quite massive for the UDF\u00a0government, which is facing a lot of heat over the solar scam and the bar bribery case.
\nChandy\u2019s claim before the polls that the result will be a referendum on the achievements of our government has turned out to be a huge embarrassment for himself and his regime.
\nAs for the Congress, many of its senior leaders have accepted the defeat and blamed the leadership for fielding \u2018 unlucky\u2019 candidates. They said that the unhappiness among the party workers over the selection of certain candidates proved decisive in the end. However, many were of the view that the bar bribery scandal did not have any effect on the electorates.
\nThe Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president, VM Sudheeran, said that the defeat was unexpected. \u201cThis was not the result that we expected. The defeat was sad and we (KPCC) will meet next week to discuss the results to gain more confidence before the 2016 Assembly election,\u201d said Sudheeran.
\nMeanwhile, CM\u00a0Chandy, smarting under the defeat, denied that there was a wave in favour of the Left in the state and said that he would look into the things that went wrong and will take corrective measures at the earliest.
\nKerala has not seen such a surprising result in the local body polls for some time. With the arrival of the BJP, the state politics is poised for some fun, drama and action.
\nadarsh@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LDF\u2019s spectacular comeback and BJP\u2019s impressive show in the local body elections leave the ruling UDF high and dry before the 2016 state Assembly polls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":258944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[2191,466,6538,5187,3007,6515,2200,3009,6526,6539],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}