Onmanorama's weekly election bulletin - Kerala Poll Buzz - is packed with analytical pieces, curated stories, social media buzz, statistics and political cartoons to keep you up-to-date with all the political developments from the south Indian state that will go to polling booths on April 6. Send your suggestions and queries to: ameerudheen@mm.co.in
The Kerala assembly election is just 24 days away, but most of the political parties, including the Congress and BJP, are yet to finalise their candidates.
The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) announced its nominees on March 10, while the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which is the second-largest party in the opposition coalition of the United Democratic Front (UDF), announced its candidates (for 25 out of the 27 seats) on March 12.
Congress and BJP are expected to announce their candidates on Sunday.
The delay in announcing candidates has raised serious questions about the election preparedness of prominent political parties in Kerala.
Two weeks have passed since the Election Commission announced Kerala poll dates on February 26. Going by the current trend, many parties could finalise their candidates only a few days before the nomination deadline of March 19.
Political parties could make the election process more inclusive and democratic by announcing their nominees well in advance.
Sample this. The average number of electorate in a Kerala constituency is 1.75 lakh. This means that a candidate has to meet 7,300 voters every day if they wish to contact all the voters in a constituency in 24 days. This appears to be an impossible task.
An early announcement will help candidates meet and interact with the electorate closely. This will give them a better understanding of their constituencies and devise strategies to address people’s issues if they get elected.
This will reduce the election expenditure as candidates will rely more on one-on-one meetings with the voters and less on expensive road shows and rallies.
It also will give enough time for voters to do a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities and threats) analysis of those in the fray and ensure votes for the right candidate.
Lastly, a change in strategy will benefit political parties too. They can gauge the public mood well in advance and field the best available persons. This will help them avoid protests that had happened in Ponnani in the Malappuram district and Kuttiadi in the Kozhikode district recently.
Hundreds of CPM sympathisers staged protests in Ponnani last week against the party’s decision to field a candidate not familiar in the constituency.
Kuttiadi constituency in Kozhikode witnessed a different kind of protest. The CPM workers staged protests, urging the leadership to field a party candidate from the constituency. The CPM had allotted the seat to its new coalition partner, Kerala Congress (M). The CPM ignored the protests and asserted that it would not change its decision in the wake of protests.
...There is More to the Story
This ground report will give you insights into the protests in Ponnani.
“Though the selection crisis appears to have been resolved, rumblings of discontent could be heard from the ground – especially in the coastal belt of Ponnani municipality and Veliyancode and Perumpadappu panchayats – and this could affect the chance of CPM candidate Nandakumar.
The coastal belt had been a hotbed of political violence involving CPM and Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) workers for more than a decade starting from 1995. The violent clashes claimed several lives from both sides. Many seriously injured people are still languishing in their homes.
Siddique was emerging as a CPM leader at that time.
He joined the party in 1989. Two years later, in 1991, he became the branch secretary. In the same year, he defeated the IUML candidate by 225 votes to become a gram panchayat member. In 1996, he was elevated as CPM’s Veliyancode local committee secretary. For a decade from 2002 to 2012, he served as the Ponnani area committee secretary. Currently, he is serving as the party’s Malappuram district secretariat member.
CPM’s cadre and mass base grew in Ponnani because of Siddique’s leadership skills even as the cycle of violence continued on the Ponnani coast.
His selfless work has made him a popular figure among people, cutting across party lines, and a top contender to get party nomination for the Ponnani Assembly seat this time.
Ponnani did not see any protests when he was denied a ticket in the 2006, 2011 and 2016 Assembly elections despite being a top contender. But 2021 turned out to be entirely different. Seat denial angered thousands of people and they took to the streets voluntarily.”
Poll Specials
Ground reports, analysis and interviews from Onmanorama reporters
‘Metroman’ E Sreedharan tells TA Ameerudheen in this exclusive interview that his campaign won't trouble people and he will not accept money for poll funds.
R Ayyappan travels across the coastal village in south Kerala to find out many unkept promises, such as housing and kerosene subsidy, may trouble the Left Democratic Front in the election.
G Ragesh writes on the possible Congress strategies to reclaim Nemom from the BJP to change the perception that Congress, and not the CPM, is the actual rival of the Sangh Parivar.
In this interview, CPM candidate from Kalamassery P Rajeev tells G Ragesh that a second term for the Pinarayi government is the need of the nation.
TA Ameerudheen tries to find out the impact of CPM’s minority pitch and BJP’s surprise candidate E Sreedharan on Congress MLA Shafi Parambil’s chances in Palakkad.
R Ayyappan decodes the confusing electoral arithmetic in constituencies in the Thiruvananthapuram district.
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Twenty20 announces 3 more candidates for Assembly polls, 8 in total
Amid mounting protests, CPM drops Balan’s wife's candidature in Tharoor
Polltoon
