The exit of the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government in Kerala after the 16th Assembly election ushers in an era when for the first time in a little over six-and-a-half decades the Communists are not in power in any of India’s UTs and states. The questions now being asked are: What went wrong for the LDF? Has Kerala, which elected the first Communist government in the world, shown the comrades the door for good?
The LDF ended the revolving door policy in Kerala when its government under chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan returned to power for a second consecutive time in 2021. It was hoping to score a hat-trick victory in 2026 under him on the strength of development, welfare programmes, massive infrastructure projects completed and work in the health and education sectors accomplished in the last 10 years. The projects did in fact change the life of the average Keralite.
One of the strengths of Leftists all over the world has been to set a narrative of their engagement. The LDF, however, failed to weave one around the need to continue with the work of the previous two governments. The campaign slogan of the LDF asked “Who else, but us?”, but named only completed projects, not ongoing ones and it also did not suggest new ones that required an LDF government at the helm.
The UDF, on the other hand, displayed unusual deftness going about its election campaign. It dismissed the LDF development story, making it look very usual and only to be expected. It rejected advances in fiscal management made by LDF despite strangulation by the Union government, complaining of empty government coffers even with no data to back its claims. Even the remarkable upgrade of the healthcare sector was tarnished by calling attention to the occasional slip in the massive system.
Having thus pulled apart its performance, UDF leaders talked up their own agenda. As chairman of UDF, Opposition leader and frontrunner to the CM’s post V.D. Satheesan successfully sold people ideas to generate revenue and projects to “rebuild the state” though he presented no cohesive plan for these.
The UDF, however, had its ear to the ground and launched a propaganda campaign based on the shortcomings of the leaders of the LDF. There was deep disenchantment among a large section of party workers about Mr Vijayan’s purportedly arrogant style of functioning. The controversy over payments his daughter received for alleged services rendered to a controversial mineral sand processing company in Kerala was also something many could not accept. More so, because neither Mr Vijayan nor his daughter provided any explanation for her actions. The ill-conceived high-speed rail project connecting the northern and southern parts of the state was yet another sore point. Allegation of favouritism by senior leaders in the party hierarchy was another.
The UDF was smart enough to cash in on each of these allegations. It sold the horror story of the party’s decimation in West Bengal to the partymen themselves. The narrative was that the party was moving in the same direction and would meet the same fate should it be allowed to continue in government. And Mr Satheesan publicly announced a year ago that he had started enlisting fellow-travellers from among them for a pro-UDF movement. He got the right people to endorse this theory.
Poet and long-time fellow traveller K. Sachidanandan, at present president of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi, was the first to fire a salvo saying he would prefer the LDF to sit in the Opposition. It reverberated across Left circles. Mr Satheesan added a cloak of respectability to the rebels, saying he had advised UDF workers to be nice to “good Communists” for they will vote for the UDF. And this good Communist vs bad Communist narrative actually worked, razing several fortresses the CPI(M) held for long. The Left failed to counter this drift by convincing leaders that an India with no Communist government was less than ideal.
The UDF also used to the hilt the alleged role of a CPI(M) leader in the theft of gold at Sabarimala while president of the Travancore Devaswom Board, highlighting the failure of the party to take action against him. The LDF inadvertently fed this narrative. Can it deny the fact that it got the TDB to organise an Ayyappa conference ostensibly to draw investment for development of the hill temple but it turned out to be a bid to build a bridge with the Hindu community?
Even signing the PM-SHRI project in a clandestine manner after opposing it for long compromised LDF. The CM’s open endorsement of Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan did no good either, for as head of the organisation of the powerful Ezhava community, Mr Natesan had earned notoriety for his hate speeches against the Muslims and Christians. It was indeed an attempt to pander to the Hindu vote by the LDF. But it presented the UDF with enough ingredients about a narrative around a CPM-BJP deal in Kerala. It ended up undermining the growing support for the Leftists among Muslims.
The West Bengal spectre now stares the Left in the eye in Kerala. It will take a meaningful soul search and course correction for the party to not go down the same road in the state.
