Kerala

Early trends in the polls – Congress in a leading position, but not really ahead

At this point, the trends in all the regional elections are pretty clear, and some of the expectations are coming true. The states which went to elections were: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Pondicherry. The results in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were the ones which were most eagerly awaited, because of the implications of these on national parties. And the results did not disappoint, since the outcome of the elections have shaken up many politicians, with the most deep impact on the Left Front which lost its decades old bastion of West Bengal, and also seems to be losing in Kerala, thus relegating it to a non-entity. What happens to the leadership of Prakash Karat may be an interesting side-story. The Communist Front will lose all its political powers after this election, but the gainer is not the Congress. Here is a more state by state analysis.

West Bengal: The Left Front in the state, who have been in power for the past so many decades (since 1977) have finally lost by a huge margin to the firebrand Mamta Banerjee. This was somewhat expected, although the margin of victory shows how the Left has been sidelined. This is even more incredible since the Left has a cadre based organization which was expected to use its measures such as force and organization to get people to vote on its side. However, the lack of development, faulty policies by the Left, and many misdeeds of the Left cadre have pushed the people to vote in enough numbers for Mamta Banerjee. The Congress also wins, but is mostly along for the ride by virtue of being coalition partners. The Congress would have been hoping for an election where Mamta does not have a majority of her own, but it seems likely that Mamta will get to that position, which puts her in an incredibly strong position in the state, and continues with her ability to even push her weight around in the center. The Left will have to wait for quite some time to see whether it can even think of a comeback.
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Drama in Kerala for the second time – people power pushes CPM to back Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan

In Kerala, there is a constant power struggle within the ruling CPM party (actually the ruling front is the Left Front, but the CPM is the main party and decides who gets to be the Chief Minister); the party apparatus has been totally taken over by the State Secretary of the party in that region, Pinarayi Vijayan. Vijayan has a total control over the CPM structure in the state of Kerala, but is unable to get the top post. In the last election in 2006, the state party had won the elections and initially decided that the 82 old year leader V S Achuthanandan will not be the Chief Minister candidate. However, V S Achuthanandan was the most popular leader of the party and there was a groundswell of opinion that forced his selection as the Chief Minister. In the 5 years that he was ruling, he was always at logger-heads with the members of his party, never getting their support. Many of the ministers in the government did not listen to their own Chief Minister since they owed their position to the state secretary.
It is not like the wily Chief Minister did not do anything. He promoted a legal case against Vijayan and also led a series of measures against land grabbers that were opposed by the other members of his party. And he retained the support of the population of Kerala who consider him a very honest politician, as compared to the other members of his party who are not seen in the same light. But, it is never easy to make you way when your own party is against you, and the central leaders of the party also do not come out on your side. So, the Chief Minister was even kicked out from the central politburo because of the ongoing dispute with Vijayan; imagine that a party is only in power in 2 states, and the Chief Minister of one of the states is kicked out from the central politburo of the party.
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Communist problems over internal politics, and perceptions

How quickly the mighty can fall ! Lest that sound like gloating, it is not, it is something that some of the more clear-thinking of the Communist crowd in India must be thinking. Just a couple of years back, they were top of the Government of India. If they said ‘nay’ to a proposal by the Government, the Government would hem and haw and finally withdraw the proposal, and this was something that the Congress Government accepted as a price to pay for keeping their Government alive. However, it was the nuclear deal that provoked the Government to take a firm stand, and this time, they out-bluffed the Communists, and using all their money and negotiation powers, they managed to win the vote of confidence.
And then came elections 2009, with the Congress coming back to power with much higher numbers, and the Communists getting knocked off their top perch, with their number of seats down to 24. The Communist parties are strong contenders only in 2 states, West Bengal and Kerala, and in both of them, they suffered severe reverses.

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