The credit for LDF’s resounding win in Kerala goes to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who has emerged as a hero that stood firmly with people in times of worst crises, including two massive floods and Covid pandemic. The popularity garnered for the daily press conferences telecast by visual media since the outbreak of the pandemic is the best evidence of cementing the bond between the CM and people.
Here, Pinarayi is recognised as the successful crisis manager of the state. LDF government did well on matters that directly affect ordinary people, like modernising health care centres, shifting of government schools to hightech levels, supply of regular food kits to all during the flood and Covid pandemic, pension scheme for the elderly that was implemented smoothly and others.
Moreover, despite allegation levelled by the Opposition, the LIFE Mission housing scheme benefited over 3 lakh families. The people of Kerala could not find any serious omissions from the governments, unlike the previous rulers. In the most important allegation against the government on the gold smuggling case, the investigating agencies of the centre, NIA, Customs, and Enforcement Directorate, failed to bring any evidence.
The LDF victory was unexpected one for the UDF due to the political tradition of Kerala alt e r nat ing be twe e n governments. The setback UDF suffered would affect its very existence. Factional feuds within the Congress in Kerala damaged the unity of the party for preparing a strategy to challenge the ruling LDF government since the Opposition front’s spectacular victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The corruption charges raised by UDF failed to have any impact on people’s trust towards the government. Moreover, UDF could not put project anybody as its Chief Minister to challenge Pinarayi’s leadership. The exit of Jose K Mani’s Kerala Congress due to the oversight of the Congress party helped LDF to strengthen its position in central Kerala. Another serious error committed by UDF was sticking on the old Sabarimala temple issue as the major theme of its election campaign as it failed to receive popular attention. Finally, UDF had nothing new to offer in its campaign to overcome the welfare measures carried out by the LDF in the past five years.
The setback suffered by BJP, despite the presence of (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and (Union Minister) Amith Shah for the election campaign, is another important outcome of this election. As a third front of the state, NDA could not win even a seat and lost the sole seat, Nemom, which it had won in 2016.
Moreover, BJP secured the second position only in five constituencies comparing to seven constituencies in 2016. It points towards the decline of BJP’s vote share in the election of 2021. Many factors led to the poor performance of NDA and the BJP. Here, the party widely used the Sabrimala temple issue as its main campaign theme, a policy lapse committed by LDF in 2018. However, it failed to make any impact. Modi government’s performance already made a negative impact in Kerala, especially the response towards the muchneeded relief during the flood. Finally, in a state with a minority population of about 45%, the victory of BJP is still viewed with much apprehension. The attempt made by the BJP to appease the Christians on the eve of election could not bring any fruitful result.
(The writer is a political scientist & professor of political science, Kerala University)