Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said that the UDF should not mistake the Lok Sabha result as a verdict against the LDF government. Indirectly alluding to the Muslim and Christian communities, the Chief Minister said that they thought that the Congress was in a better position to boot out the oppressive Narendra Modi dispensation.
"Don't be under the impression that these people had anything against the Left," the Chief Minister said while replying to a discussion in the Assembly on demands for grants in the budget. He picked events from past political history - from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala - to show how parties that had lost badly in Lok Sabha polls bounced back dramatically in the Assembly polls held soon after.
The Chief Minister then made a curious comparison to suggest that it was the UDF and not the Left that had suffered in the 2024 polls. He said that while the LDF votes fell by 4.92 lakh votes, the UDF saw an erosion of 6.11 lakh votes. If the loss was 1.75% for the LDF, it was 2.11% for the UDF.
The problem with the CM's logic is that it does not factor in the massive loss of the LDF in 2019. Then, the LDF saw a drop of nearly 4% in its vote share and the UDF enjoyed a near 6% surge. The Congress drop is from a high, and the Left improvement is from a low base.
In addition to arguing that the UDF had a worse fate, the Chief Minister also trotted out numbers to show that it was the massive erosion of Congress votes that led to the BJP's victory in Thrissur. He said the Congress votes fell by nearly 10%. The Congress votes had taken a huge hit in all the Assembly segments in Thrissur, he said. On the other hand, the CM said the LDF votes had registered an increase in all Assembly segments as against 2019.
The CM also hinted that in Thrissur the BJP could lure to its side the Christian community, which he said had opted for the Congress in the rest of Kerala.
The Chief Minister also expressed his anguish at some of the comments made by Muslim League leaders in the Assembly. "I think this victory has gone to their heads," he said. He picked N Shamsudheen and P K Basheer for special mention.
Earlier in the day, provoked by the shouts of the ruling benches while he was moving an adjournment motion, Shamshudeen had used a harsh word to describe their shouting. He promptly withdrew it when Speaker A N Shamseer said it was "unparliamentary".
The CM said by using that word Shamsudheen betrayed his attitude towards the LDF. "He was actually looking down upon us like dogs. See what a victory has done to a well-behaved MLA like Shamsudheen," he said. During the discussion, Basheer had used a rustic jargon to ask the ruling side whether they had any shame. "There is nothing for us to be ashamed of," the CM said