CPM’s Sabarimala ‘apology’ works, party wins Kerala’s Konni after 23 years

Konni is in Pathanamthitta district where Sabarimala shrine is located. CPM also manages to wrest Vattiyoorkavu. Congress wins 2 seats, IUML 1. BJP draws a blank.

CPI(M) flags (Representational image ) | ThePrint

Bengaluru: The ruling CPM, at the receiving end of the Sabarimala protests last year, has won a bypoll in the district where the hill shrine is located. In the results declared Thursday, the CPM wrested the Konni seat from the Congress after a gap of 23 years.

Konni is in Pathanamthitta district where the Swami Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala is located.

Political analysts said the CPM leadership’s “timely door-to-door apology” on the Sabarimala issue appears to have helped the party in the bypoll.

“There was no Sabarimala issue this time but during the Lok Sabha elections, the stand taken by the government had angered believers,” said political analyst G. Pramod Kumar. “A section of votes swung in favour of the BJP but the CPM proactively apologised, directly and indirectly, which has helped them in the seats they have won.”

Last year, the CPM government had decided to implement the Supreme Court order that permitted menstruating women aged 10-50 years to enter the Ayyappa shrine.

The CPM also won the Vattiyoorkavu in Thiruvananthapuram district, which has a high Hindu population.

Congress-led UDF wins in 3 seats

The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) won in the remaining three bypolls in Kerala.

While the Congress retained the Ernakulam assembly seat it won in the 2016 elections, it wrested the Aroor constituency from the ruling CPM-led Left front.

Congress ally, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), won in Manjeshwaram assembly constituency.

Poor performance by BJP 

The BJP, which had launched a massive campaign on the Sabarimala issue and had aggressively prevented women from entering the temple, appears to have not reaped any political benefit.

BJP’s K. Surendran, the face of its Sabarimala agitation, finished third in Konni polling 39,786 votes.

K.U. Jenish Kumar of the CPI(M) won Konni, defeating nearest rival P. Mohanraj of the Congress by 9,953 votes.

The party also came a poor third in Aroor and Ernakulam. It is only in Manjeshwaram that the BJP emerged as a direct rival of the winning candidate.

Kumar said unless the BJP looks beyond the Hindu vote, it will “never be able” to gain ground in Kerala.

“The BJP relies on the Hindu majority in the state who are 55 per cent of the population,” he said. “Orthodox Christians are the soft target of the BJP but as of now, they are still with the UDF. In Konni, the Church supported the BJP but it’s not the case in other places.”