Kerala Lok Sabha Polls: Congress-Left bitterness as every seat matters

As the election campaign peaks in Kerala for the 20 Lok Sabha seats, the traditional Congress vs Left has taken new dimensions, with a visible extra bitterness, despite both sides being allies in the INDIA bloc.

This election is witnessing BJP’s all-out efforts to crack the hitherto elusive electoral password of Kerala politics.

The spiralling election fever amid Kerala currently witnessing an unfamiliar rise in the mercury forms a suitable electoral backdrop for the Congress and the Left slugging it out amid an unconcealed personal targeting of its top leaders, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and CM Pinarayi Vijayan.

This could be unfamiliar, and a bit unnerving for Delhi-based theoreticians who bake “secular unity” from the comforts of political cubicles, remotely cut off from the realities of cold-blooded calculations and gladiator wars on the ground to rake in numbers for the Dilli durbar.

As every single seat counts for the Opposition parties in this round of do-or-die Lok Sabha polls, Kerala’s 20 seats hold special significance for the Congress and Left parties, as this is one state from where they can make their best kitty, or let it slip overall calculations, reports ET.

Congress’ Comfort Zone
This relatively small state, ironically, holds a major place in the Grand Old party’s all-India electoral scale.

It was both a reflection of the Congress’ shrinking base elsewhere and of the robustness of the Kerala party’s electoral connect that this state delivered in the 2019 poll, the Congress’ best tally from a single state —15 out of 20 (making it 19 with UDF allies) besides providing Rahul Gandhi the safety belt of Wayanad.

Yet, the Congress-led UDF suffering a shock defeat in the 2021 assembly polls also demonstrated the political volatility of the electorate here when it came to national and state elections.

As the Congress continues to face uncertain electoral weather in BJP strongholds and is thus looking to the South for a base, the UDF is not leaving any stone unturned as it has to guard against the incumbency burden of 18 of the 19 MPs, who have been fielded again.

The fact that UDF, after polling a whopping 47.48% votes in 2019, had slipped to 39.47% in the 2021 assembly polls, also shows the track to recover this time.

Yet, Congress’ hope is hinged on the calculation that being the main Opposition party against the BJP nationally would make the state electorate to prefer it over the Left in a national election amid Modi-led BJP’s pitch for a hattrick. The Congress’ electoral ringtone in Kerala is about how only it can rally the national fight to oust BJP in Delhi.

Crucial Minority Segments
In the projected “ideological” and “political” fights in Kerala, the real battle between the UDF and LDF, which have, along with BJP, their own pie in the Hindu electorate, is to win over voters of the minority segment –– Muslim-Christian population account for nearly 45% –– and make it their tilting factor.

That, in short, explains the competitive war of words between the LDF and UDF brass, including Pinarayi and Gandhi, as they try to demonstrate to the Muslim-Christian galleries who among them are more anti-BJP. If Congress tells these segments that only it can stop BJP and Modi nationally, LDF counters it by reeling out the number of Congress leaders who defected to the BJP elsewhere.


That explains why Gandhi targeted Pinarayi by alleging that ED was going soft on charges against his government only to see the CM hitting back by painting Gandhi as the one taking refuge in Wayanad than fighting it out against the BJP in the North.

It is for winning the Muslim hearts that LDF and UDF mix facts with fiction to present who was more anti-CAA. The Congress’ edgy promise to repeal CAA if INDIA bloc forms the government advertises the party’s sensitivity to the Left polemics before the Muslim electoral gallery.

Yet, LDF and UDF are alike in citing the Manipur violence, as their way of cautioning the Christian segments, being wooed by the BJP.

Left’s Recovery Bid
For the CPI-M and LDF, Kerala holds critical importance. With the CPI-M electoral base in West Bengal and Tripura virtually withering away, Kerala remains the last port for the Marxists.

The backdrop of the row over the Sabarimala temple entry for young women and the misplaced hope among many Malayalees about the imminent return of the Congress to the Delhi throne in 2019 had tanked LDF’s fight against UDF in the previous LS poll, losing 19 of the 20 seats and slipping to 36.29% votes.

However, the Pinarayi Vijayan government, bucking the state’s electoral trend in 2021 to retain power, has brought the LDF back to its feet. But LDF faces a twin-challenge in the LS polls—to once again make the state’s anti-BJP electoral segments to prefer it — despite the Left’s shrinking rope nationally — over the Congress in a national politics fight against BJP.

Secondly, the LDF this time battles incumbency issues of its state government, including default in payment of social welfare pensions, mounting state debt, besides the second Pinarayi government facing charges of corrupt practices in some Left-controlled cooperative banks even as the CM’s daughter is facing an ED probe into some payments to her IT firm.

The LDF’s challenge this time is to win a presentable number of seats after its 2019 low of one.

BJP’s Search for an Opening

Caught between the entrenched UDF and LDF and facing a large minority communities’ segment, the BJP is continuing with its efforts and experiments to emerge as a ‘third player’ in Kerala.

The party, that has so far won just one assembly seat in the state, is making an all-out attempt to open its LS account this time. Apart from its increasing vote percentage in the state (13% in 2019), attempts to woo sections of Christians, fielding some high-profile candidates including two union ministers and film stars and showcasing the ‘catches’ from the families of some Congress stalwarts, the state BJP is banking a lot, especially given its dearth of effective state leadership, on ‘the Modi plank’.

The PM has made extensive campaign tours of the state, trying to paint both Congress and Left as two sides of the same coin, as two pillars of “corruption”, while working to persuade the natives to give him and his party a chance to make Kerala part of his government’s ‘developmental’ menu.

Yet BJP’s ‘Mission Kerala’, for now, appears limited to try and open its LS account, and if not, to expand its vote growth to be in the reckoning in the future.