Congress has not had a convincing victory in the Kerala Assembly elections since 2001.
There was a narrow win in 2011, the United Democratic Front (UDF)’s last win in the state. But the Congress, leading the UDF, won seven seats fewer than the Communist Party of India (Marxist), leading the Left Democratic Front (LDF). And that’s not counting the two CPI(M)-backed independents who won from Kunnamangalam and Thavanur.
Multiple theories have been put forward about the sorry plight of the Congress in Kerala’s Assembly elections ever since. All while the UDF has consistently done well in the Lok Sabha elections in the state.
So, what explains this phenomenon?
It is a combination of factors. And it is unlikely to be due to the 2008 delimitation of constituencies, as most people believe.
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K Karunakaran’s exit
The biggest setback was the exit of K Karunakaran and his faction in 2005. During the multiple splits undergone by the Congress in 1964, 1969 and 1978, the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and K Karunakaran were constants.
Karunakaran came to the Congress through the INTUC, and his faction was known to function like a cadre-driven unit, whereas the AK Antony faction that emerged following the 1969 split was renowned for resorting to public relations (PR) tactics even back in the day.
Karunakaran was fiercely anti-Sangh Parivar, and his exit coincided with the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in national politics.
He never entertained thoughts of allying with the BJP, even when the CPI(M) refused an alliance in 2006 after initially courting him. But many of his erstwhile cadres ended up becoming foot soldiers for the BJP.
Karunakaran was seen as the leader of the upper classes and the Nairs in Kerala. His exit from Congress left them orphaned. While Karunakaran got back to the mothership before his death, most of his followers didn’t come back.
The Chandy-Chennithala axis
If factionalism during the Karunakaran-Antony era was patched up at the time of elections and the party attained twice the strength when their cadres worked in unison, it was markedly different after Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala took over from them.
Chandy replaced AK Antony as chief minister after the Lok Sabha election debacle of 2004, and Chennithala took over as Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief in 2005. Chennithala was initially part of the Karunakaran faction, but rebelled along with a small faction that included KC Venugopal and VD Satheesan, after Karunakaran began to groom his son K Muralidharan as his successor in the early 1990s.
After Chennithala took over as PCC chief, the erstwhile Karunakaran loyalists of the party coalesced around him, along with the Vayalar Ravi loyalists, making for a very loose arrangement. The intense factionalism in the post-2011 scenario was markedly different, with Chandy and Chennithala often dividing the spoils between their factions. Individual merit did not count for much.
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The 2011 election
The UDF managed to come to power in 2011, but the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which won 20 seats, extracted its pound of flesh by wresting five ministerial positions. The education ministry under IUML began to come under attack from Hindu community outfits like the Nair Service Society (NSS) and Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam for perceived favouritism.
A case in point was the 2013 executive order to elevate 33 private unaided schools in Malappuram into aided schools, which was later struck down by the court.
The polarisation in its wake prompted the NSS and the Ezhava-backed SNDP to close ranks, even if Oommen Chandy managed to woo the NSS back into its camp.
This was the backdrop for the SNDP’s latest political foray and the formation of the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS).
Modi’s win in 2014
Narendra Modi’s win in 2014 was a development that exacerbated the Hindu polarisation in Kerala, and the critical factor that led to the creation of the BDJS. It essentially annihilated the Ezhava base of the Congress. The Left still had its working-class Ezhava base.
Modi’s 2014 ascent influenced the voting patterns of the Muslim community. Until then, Kerala was used to political voting more than communal voting. The phenomenon of Muslim consolidation in favour of the frontrunner between the UDF and the LDF in seats where the BJP stood a chance wasn’t witnessed until that point, as the party remained a marginal player.
Congress got carried away with its massive mandate of 19/20 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, assuming it was down to the Sabarimala agitation and Rahul Gandhi’s candidature in Wayanad. But it was due to minority consolidation across the state, with the other factors merely compounding in nature.
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Muslim consolidation in 2021
With the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the pipeline, Kerala Muslims, by and large, threw their weight behind Pinarayi Vijayan. They saw a tough leader in the Kannur strongman, whose Covid management was also appreciated.
If Ramesh Chennithala, who led the Congress campaign in 2021, assumed that Kerala’s pattern of anti-incumbency would ensure the defeat of LDF, the UDF’s returns turned out to be worse than its loss in 2016.
Along with the Muslim consolidation in favour of the Left, Pinarayi Vijayan’s social engineering, inspired by K Karunakaran, ensured his success. The Christian-Muslim polarisation in the run-up to that election turned out to be the coup de grace.
BJP’s growth
The BJP’s growth in Kerala was supposed to damage the Left more than the Congress, as the CPI(M) is regarded as the ‘Hindu party’ in the state. However, it worked out differently than anticipated.
The BJP managed to predominantly eat into the Ezhava and Nair vote bank of the Congress, before it hurt the CPI(M).
The pattern in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, however, revealed how the BJP had also begun to harm the CPI(M), absorbing the latter’s Ezhava vote bank. When the CPI(M) took stock after the election, it concluded that the flogging of the Palestine issue and CAA was not only leading to diminishing returns, but also erosion in its Hindu vote bank.
The CPI(M) has been course-correcting ever since, resorting to ‘soft-Hindutva’ in the run-up to the local body polls. It managed to wrest a share of votes it lost to the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls. However, such a strategy alienated its Muslim vote bank, which now coalesced behind the UDF.
2008 constituency delimitation
A lot of political commentators attribute the weakening of the Congress in Kerala to the 2008 delimitation of constituencies. It is true that the character of many constituencies changed overnight.
But if you look at ground realities, the weakening is caused by a combination of factors, from Karunakaran’s exit and factionalism in the Chandy-Chennithala era to Pinarayi Vijayan’s social engineering and the BJP’s growth, resulting in dynamic Muslim voting patterns.
Now, with the minorities consolidating behind the UDF once again, the upcoming election will be an interesting one to watch.
Anand Kochukudy is a Kerala-based journalist and columnist. He tweets @AnandKochukudy. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)