Pinarayi Stoops to Conquer, Gets Crushing Defeat

Desperation was palpable when Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, leading the LDF government, busied himself organising Global Ayyappa Sangamam, after having faced decimation in the Lok Sabha election last year. 

Mending fences with the influential subaltern caste outfits, a war-time recruitment, Nair Service Society and the Shree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP), whose general secretary once spewed hatred against the Muslims in the state, was taken up as part of a salvage operation but the Chief Minister lost the battle. The compromises that he entered into did not prevent the wipe out of the alliance in the recently-held local body elections. He stooped to conquer but faltered, and to top it all, the BJP came to sit in his backyard, winning the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Photo Credit @CMOKerala

The LDF’s losses were heavy across gram and block panchayats, municipal councils and corporations. A photograph, published in the state’s newspapers, of the Chief Minister and SNDP general secretary Vellappally Natesan travelling together in a chauffeur-driven black SUV to the Global Ayyappa Sangamam gave a clear message that no holds were barred for the Chief Minister to win the elections, a precursor to the Assembly elections a few months away.

He put his secular credentials on its head, eating his own words, not to ally with any organisations that are starkly communal. The LDF government’s support for letting women of menstruating age enter the Sabarimala temple had antagonised and alienated sections of the Hindus.

The Sangamam was an effort to bring them back to the fold.  NSS and SNDP leaders rallied behind him for the religious jamboree camouflaged as the 75th anniversary of the Travancore Devaswom Board. NSS general secretary Sukumaran Nair, who had earlier called for the ouster of the LDF government, took a U-turn and gave a much-needed support to the Chief Minister for holding the Sangamam. 

Yet, Pinarayi cosying up to NSS and SNDP leaders and the latter’s assurance of support failed to enthuse their supporters to vote for the LDF. Natesan is one of the accused in a case involving misappropriation of crores of rupees from the SNDP’s microfinance scheme. 

He is also an accused in other cases. The Ezhava community members are no longer the foot soldiers of Natesan, nor do they follow his dictates. The same is the case with Sukumaran Nair whose decrees are no longer adhered to by its members. Hence, the efforts of the Chief Minister to be in the good books of the majority community failed miserably. Vijayan over-assessed the command of Vellappally Natesan and Sukumaran Nair over their respective community members.     

The Sabrimala gold theft issue also tarnished the image of the Chief Minister's party as most of the accused in the case have CPI(M) connections. The Hindus were upset over the ‘sacrilege’ committed at one of their most venerable and revered holy places. They voted with a vengeance against the LDF in the polls, putting the CM’s agenda to consolidate the majority at naught.       

Another bid to retain the Hindu votes by alleging that the Congress had been seeking the support of the right-wing Jammat-e-Islami to jack up its vote base boomeranged when the Congress countered it by exposing the Jamaat’s outright support for the LDF during the 2019 Assembly elections that brought Vijayan back as Chief Minister for the second consecutive time.

The losses were all the more evident in the Muslim-dominated areas as the community members felt that the Chief Minister had pulled back in his fight against the Hindutva agenda. Capping it all, on the eve of the local body polls, the government gave a green signal to implement the PM-SHRI, a central government scheme that the State government had been opposing tooth and nail. Though the government was forced to withdraw the approval granted to the scheme, it left the LDF government bleeding. 

Thiruvananthapuram’s Mayor VV Rajesh and Deputy Mayor Asha Nath Picture Credit @RajeevRC_X

Yet another jolt came from the Christian community, a section of which had favoured the LDF in the last Assembly elections. A major chunk of Christian votes came back to the UDF led by the Congress. The BJP’s dream of chipping away a part of Christian votes failed miserably as it could hardly make any inroads in Central Kerala where the community holds sway.

Of the 941 gram panchayats, LDF bagged only 340 while the UDF got 505, and the NDA just 26; of the block panchayats, LDF got 63 while UDF bagged 79, and NDA nil; in district panchayats, LDF and UDF got seven each. In Municipal Council elections, LDF got 28, while UDF managed 54 and NDA 2; Of the six corporations, four went to the UDF, and one each for LDF and BJP. 

The vote share of each alliance is also on similar lines: UDF – 38.81%; LDF – 33.45%; and NDA – 14.71%. Going by the voting pattern, the UDF is leading in over 80 of the 140 Assembly seats. This probably is a pointer to which alliance will come to power in the State in the coming Assembly elections, just four months away.