For an unprecedented second time in a row, Kerala's ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) has drawn a near blank in a Lok Sabha poll. Once again, after the ignominy of 2019, the LDF could not take its tally beyond one.
Making this loss worse for the LDF is the first-ever LS win for the BJP in Kerala. Now there is nothing to separate the CPM from the BJP. Both have one seat each. This time, however, the LDF and its leading party, the CPM, cannot repeat the excuse it had trotted out last time that it was a national election.
At least on the face of it, the CPM was on a good wicket this time. Even the CPM, especially its star campaigner Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, often said that 2024 was not 2019.
He was right in many senses. The historic second coming in the 2021 Assembly polls was a sign that the faithful had long forgiven the CPM for its indiscretion in Sabarimala. And unlike last time, no one believed that the Congress would come to power and Rahul Gandhi will be the next Prime Minister.
What's more, there was no compulsion on a Left-leaning voter desperate to see the back of Narendra Modi to choose the Congress over the LDF in the interests of the larger good. Since both the CPM and the Congress are part of Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), it was no one's case that a vote for the CPM would scuttle the chances of the anti-BJP alliance.
In addition to the favourable political climate, the CPM did its bit of social engineering too. The party went all out to woo the minorities, especially the Muslim community. It positioned itself as an untiring champion of the Muslim cause. The CPM sought to give the impression that it was the only party that took an uncompromising stand against the Citizenship Amendment Act. That there was no mention of the CAA in the Congress manifesto was yet another advantage.
The CPM also seemed to have the silent backing of the Samastha Kerala Jem-iyyathul Ulama, the most influential body of Muslim scholars in Kerala that was till recently considered an appendage of the Muslim League.
If the LDF was badly mauled despite many factors seemingly going for it, it was because anti-incumbency came into play. Disenchantment with the second Pinarayi government seems to have sabotaged the LDF's efforts to position itself as the only ideological alternative to the BJP.
On one side there were governance and political issues: the fiscal crisis (manifested in the delay in payment of social welfare pensions), man-animal conflict, campus violence (embodied in the death of veterinary student J S Siddharth) and politics of murder (a reminder of which was the accidental explosion of a country-made bomb in April that killed one person in Panur, and another was the High Court verdict in February that upheld the Kozhikode Additional Sessions Court verdict of life imprisonment for those accused in the murder of RMP leader T P Chandrasekharan on May 4, 2012).
And on the other were the serious charges of corruption against the Chief Minister and his family.
Combined, these 'anti-incumbency nurturing' issues conspired to push some of the CPM's finest names to humiliating defeats. Central committee member and former health minister K K Shailaja lost to Shafi Parambil in Vadakara for 1.15 lakh votes. CPM central committee member and Rajya Sabha MP Elamaram Kareem lost by 1.4 lakh votes against M K Raghavan in Kozhikode. Former finance minister and central committee member T M Thomas Isaac lost to Congress's Anto Antony in Pathanamthitta for 66,119 votes. Former education minister C Raveendranath lost to Congress's Benny Behanan in Chalakkudy for 63,754 votes.
Devaswom minister K Radhakrishnan alone could buck the trend. He edged past Congress's Ramya Haridas by 20,111 votes.
Kerala Congress (Mani), which left the UDF and joined the LDF after 2019, lost big time. Thomas Chazhikkadan lost to Kerala Congress (Joseph) candidate Francis George by a margin of 87,266 votes.
The CPM vote share that had dipped by 4% in 2019 remained stuck in the 2019 low. Then it was 25.97%. This time it was marginally worse: 25.82%. The CPI that had a vote percentage of 6.08% in 2019 had a near insignificant increase: 6.14%. With the UDF, the KC(M) had 2.08% vote share. In 2024, in the LDF midst, it dwindled to 1.38%.
