Kerala assembly election becomes a do-or-die battle for every political parties

Many political parties which had fielded candidates in the first Assembly election in Kerala, including Praja Socialist Party, NDP, All India Muslim League, SSP, KSP, KTP, IASP, do not exist anymore. Likewise, the JSS which was formed by K R Gowriamma after leaving the CPM is also not active today, writes Sreejith Balakrishnan, Assistant Chief Content Editor, ETV Bharat.

Thiruvananthapuram: The State Assembly elections on April 6, 2021, is very crucial in the political history of Kerala and is also one that decides the future of a handful of political parties in the State.

Many political parties which had fielded candidates in the first Assembly election in Kerala, including Praja Socialist Party, NDP, All India Muslim League, SSP, KSP, KTP, IASP, do not exist anymore. Likewise, the JSS which was formed by K R Gowriamma after leaving the CPM is also not active today.

The two major alliances that are seen in Kerala today, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) were formed in the 1979-80 time period. Now, with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP also making inroads in Kerala, all the small and big political parties in Kerala have allied with any of these three major fronts. Kerala Congress was formed in the year 1964 by a faction of leaders who left the Congress. However, since the formation, Kerala Congress has been growing till today and splitting into factions and splinters, as if it was a declared policy of the party.

Today, there are five Kerala Congress factions allied with the Left and the UDF. Kerala Congress Mani faction led by Jose K Mani allied with the LDF just before the local body polls. With this, the KC Mani faction split into two and the faction led by Joseph is now a UDF ally. Just before the Assembly elections, the Joseph faction merged with P C Thomas’s Kerala Congress again and became ‘Kerala Congress’.

The Kerala Congress (B) faction, which was formed after the split from the Kerala Congress Mani faction earlier, was with the UDF. Presently, the KC (B) is with the LDF. The Janadhipathya Kerala Congress is also with the Left Front now. Of these KC factions with the Left, the Kerala Congress (KC) Mani faction is to contest in 12 seats while KC (B), and the Janadhipathya Kerala Congress are to contest in one constituency each.

Meanwhile, in the UDF, Kerala Congress Joseph faction is to contest in 10 seats and the Kerala Congress Jacob faction candidate has been fielded in one seat. The case with the National Congress Party (NCP) is also similar. The NCP has been a long time ally with the left in Kerala.

Mani C Kappan, an incumbent NCP MLA from Pala had quit NCP and formed a party named Nationalist Congress Kerala (NCK), in protest against the LDF allotting the Pala seat to its new ally Kerala Congress Jose K Mani faction.

Kappan also left the LDF and joined the UDF as the UDF offered his party two seats this election. The NCP with the LDF has been allotted three seats this time. The polls tomorrow would determine the future of both Kappan and his newly formed party NCK. Congress S, which was formed when the Congress split a long time ago, still exists as an ally with the LDF. The future of Congress S with the LDF is also based on the victory or defeat of the senior leader of Congress S, Kadannappally Ramachandran.

Both the Janata Dal-Secular and Loktantrik Janata Dal which are allies with the LDF are contesting in 3 seats each. The LDF has asked both the Janata Dal parties to merge to become mightier as one. However, that did not happen. The LDF has allotted 3 seats to the INL, which had split from the IUML earlier. It is also to be noted that the status of the INL in the LDF - whether it is an LDF ally officially- is still vague.

RSP, an ally with the UDF, once had more than three MLAs and a Minister. However, in the last Assembly, the RSP had no representative in the State Assembly. This time, RSP is contesting in 5 seats. Representatives from the CMP party which was formed by M V Raghavan after he left the CPM has not reached the assembly for a long time now. This time, it contests in one seat. The CMP needs to win in this seat to survive and sustain itself as a party.

RMPI, which had joined the UDF at last, is contesting in Vadakara. The RMPI which has not been able to send its legislator to the Assembly so far is presenting a tough fight this time as it is a prestige issue for the party to win in this election.

The state of the Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) as an ally with the NDA is pathetic. The party has 21 candidates contesting this time, though it has not had one legislator elected so far. Vishnupuram Chandrashekharan’s Kerala Kamaraj Congress and C K Janu’s Janadhipathya Rashtriya Sabha also have one each seat under the NDA this time.

This election is a matter of survival; not only for the parties which have one seat allotted under the major fronts but also for the parties which have been splitting, merging, and losing the might in the process.