The bypoll verdict from Chengannur in Kerala has come as a morale booster for the LDF government in the state. It comes at a time when CPM and its chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has faced flak for successive incidents of abuse of power by police officers. In improving its winning margin from nearly 8,000 votes in 2016 to nearly 21,000 votes, CPM and Chengannur voters have effectively ??dished out a staggering blow to Congress and BJP.
For Congress, the bypoll was an opportunity to overcome the loss in 2016 that reduced it to a rump legislative outfit, marginally ahead of the Muslim League in number of MLAs. The LDF government???s performance has been largely mediocre but Congress has failed to convince voters on this score. The Congress has been virtually headless for over a year with the high command unable to find a suitable president who can carry all factions along and address the keenly felt need for a leader with popular connect. An appointment can be expected very soon but the setback in Chengannur will mean that the new PCC president will start from a difficult position.
BJP???s position is even more dire. Chengannur indicates that the gains it made in 2016 where it won one seat and stood second in seven has begun to recede. While it polled nearly 43,000 votes against Congress???s 45,000 in 2016, the BJP is hard pressed to explain the loss of over 7,000 votes in the bypoll. For the state unit tasked by Amit Shah with adding to BJP???s Lok Sabha kitty next year, the Chengannur result is a sign of waning voter interest.
The decision to appoint the party chief Kummanam Rajasekharan as Mizoram governor a few days before the election may have been guided by his failure to progress towards the 2019 targets Shah has set him. But the timing was wrong and his exit disoriented party cadre. The estrangement with the Ezhava dominated BJDS has also been identified as another reason for the loss of votes.
CPM is sitting pretty with Chengannur???s 38% minority voters, mainly Christians, most likely voting for it. This is a sea change from the traditional preference for Congress among Christian voters. CPM has responded to BJP???s rise by portraying itself as the most effective counter to Hindutva politics while Congress is trying hard to recapture the votes BJP has stolen from it. CPM, on the other hand, has tried to compensate its own considerable loss of votes to BJP by reaching out to the minority demographic that remained out of its bounds for so long.
For Congress this has been a double whammy. Losing Hindu voters to BJP and minority voters to CPM.??Either BJP must slide further or LDF rule must turn unpopular. In 2014, Kerala was the lone state where Congress??put up a decent performance.??With 2019 approaching LDF??is marching ahead and both UDF and BJP have their task cut out.
Comments
Post a Comment