Hyderabad: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday began his campus tour to grasp the students' view about the higher education scenario in the state. He would be visiting major University campuses in the state and interacting with students. His aim is to formulate a higher education plan that could be included in the manifesto of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) for the upcoming Assembly elections.
On the other hand, the main opposition coalition, the United Democratic Front (UDF), led by the Congress is kicking up the much-debated issue of women's entry in Sabarimala, which is currently under consideration of the court, as one of their main campaign materials. The UDF had realised in a hard way that the allegations of gold smuggling, corruption in Life Mission and irregularities in IT department against the LDF government did not gain ground during the local body elections, and the coalition has now come back to the Sabarimala issue as its main poll campaign material.
Contrary to the general practice of anchoring the poll campaign on what the coalition would be doing after coming to power and on political allegations against the opposition, the LDF is mainly hitting the campaign track, talking loud about what they have achieved in the last five years and how they are going to improve on what they have already started. 'Vote for Development' would be the main slogan for LDF in the coming Assembly elections when they seek a consecutive second term.
LDF won the local body elections with a thumping majority recently with the same campaign model. The coalition refused to fall into the trap of countering the allegations raised by the opposition but stuck to what they wanted to tell the voters, telling them to look around to see the change. The voters, who have been beneficiaries of various welfare schemes, including free provision kits through the Public Distribution System throughout the Covid pandemic and during floods, needed no convincing.
"There has been a hate campaign against the government using lies and baseless allegations. But people did not listen to any of these. They supported the welfare and development works carried out by the government. They wanted the government to continue the good work," Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in a post-election press conference.
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The message is loud and clear that the LDF is not going to anchor their campaign on countering the allegations raised against the government, but to reiterate what the government had achieved in the last five years despite the state having to hurdle through Nippah, two massive floods, natural calamities like landslides and then the Covid pandemic. When people seemed to have voted for LDF in the local body elections considering the ruling front's claims of development, the ruling front now knows that it would be difficult for the opposition to win back the confidence of the voters by just repeating the same allegations against the government in the Assembly polls.
When Pinarayi Vijayan started his public outreach programme last month, he had told the public that out of 600 projects and plans promised in the 2016 Manifesto, only 30 are left to be completed and that they would be complete before the term ends.
The LDF government has many projects that they can wear up their sleeves during the upcoming poll campaign - Ardram Mission, that revolutionised the public health care system in the state; Life Mission, which has provided 2,51,046 houses to the houseless in the state till January 18 this year; Haritha Keralam Mission to protect its waterways, greenery and for effective waste management; Public Education Rejuvenation Mission that saw the revival of public education in Kerala; several iconic steps towards women empowerment and for the LGBT community, Kerala would probably be the first state to give government employment to transgenders through Public Service Commission among many other innovative and socially inclusive measures for them; K Phone for free and affordable internet for all its citizens and various infrastructure development programmes that were realised through Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB).
KIIFB, a body corporate, though criticised by Congress and BJP alike for its foreign borrowings, is now funding most of the infrastructure projects in the state. The Assembly also had to take an unprecedented stand against the Controller and Auditor General's report which had termed KIIFB unconstitutional. The Assembly had passed a resolution removing the objectionable portions of the CAG report, to which the UDF vehemently opposed.
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Here, confidence is in war with confusion and distraction. UDF, which is already weakened by strong groupist interests between former CM Oommen Chandy, present opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and KPCC president Mulappally Ramachandran, all eyeing the CM post, is finally raking up Sabarimala as a poll issue. Anti-incumbency may not be a factor that the UDF would like to rely on for the poll campaign, especially on the backdrop of the local body wins by the ruling front. Moreover, Indian Union Muslim League, which has been the trusted partner of UDF, has started dictating terms inside UDF post local body polls. Congress owes heavily to IUML for most of the local body seats that they have won when they failed miserably in their strong forts.
Hence, they are back to what they thought helped them sweep the Parliament polls last year, Sabarimala. Though there is no doubt that Sabarimala did dent a hole in the vote bank of CPM during the Parliament election, the major contributing factor for a UDF sweep, winning 19 out of the 20 Parliament constituencies, was the sentiment against the ruling BJP. The voters chose Congress as an alternative to BJP at the centre.
The CPM secretariat has already cautioned its leaders not to respond to the Sabarimala issue related allegations raised by both BJP and UDF. Kanam Rajendran, Secretary of CPI, a major partner in the LDF coalition has already dismissed the focus on Sabarimala by the opposition. "Sabarimala is an issue that is in Court. Raising it again now is an election stunt and people know that," Kanam had told media persons. When Sabarimala again is brought to the focus, after having said nothing on it post Parliament elections, may expose the subject shortage of the opposition in the election campaigns.
When compared to the other major election states, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, where the governments face a strong wave of anti-incumbency, the Kerala government would be facing the polls selling their laurels in the last five years. It needs to be seen whether UDF could cash in on their campaign on Sabarimala to come back to power, or let a major chunk of their Hindu vote bank to vote for BJP or LDF through their alliance with hardcore Muslim organisations like SDPI.
Read: Kerala Elections: Polarisation between two minorities put UDF on the backfoot
