AS Kerala readied for the start of electioneering, the rival camps could hardly have appeared more different. On the one hand was the ruling United Democratic Front (ude), a Congress(I) headed ragtag band of communal and casteist parties, riddled with infighting. On the other, was the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (ldf), bereft of all sectarian parties for the first time, its seat-distribution producing barely a ripple and its image refurbished by a substantial allocation for youthful candidates. As least 25 of the cpi(m)'s 79 candidates are youth and student leaders. For the chief minister ship, the Front is projecting K.R. Gowri, an able administrator, hailing from the Ezhava community, the single largest in the state. A virtual mutiny gripped the Congress(I) after it decided to deny tickets to three ministers including Thachady Prabhakaran-Kerala's V.P. Singh-and M.P. Gangadharan the controversial former irrigation minister. Particularly shocking was the dumping of Prabhakaran, who, after getting election posters printed, was ready to set off for his home constituency of Kayangulam in Alleppey district, when he was given the news. Said a deeply-hurt Prabhakaran: "They should have warned me at least a day before the list was announced so that 1 could have told my followers that I would not be contesting. It would have saved me much embarrassment."
Prabhakaran's case is instructive; he was a victim of intra-caste rivalry. He is an Ezhava who alarmed all other important Ezhava leaders in the Congress(!) by acquiring an enviable public image for himself in the short time that he was finance minister. Former home minister Vya-lar Ravi, Speaker V.M. Sudhee-ran, state party chief C.V. Pad-marajan and M.K. Raghavan, the president of the Ezhavas' social organisation, all have varied loyalties within the Congress(I) but with Prabha-karan emerging as a possible Ezhava claimant for the chief ministership, they all agreed that he had to go.
Now Prabhakaran's irate supporters have vowed to defeat Gopinath and Vyalar Ravi in Shertallai. Similarly, Gangadharan, who is still fighting court cases over his minor daughter's marriage, is known to be behind 10 rebel candidates in Malappuram district though he naturally denies it. Also upset, the office-bearers of the state unit of the Youth Congress(I), resigned en masse to register their protest against the seat allocation. Grumbled Cheriyan Philip, general secretary: "The old men in the cpi(m) have given nearly 33 per cent of the seats to the youth while our party has been given hardly five seats."
Meanwhile, the Kerala Congress, a UDF partner, split between the factions of Irrigation Minister K.M. Mani and that of Revenue Minister P.J. Joseph over the question of the allotment of 24 seats, the party's share. The issue exploded when Joseph unilaterally announced the names of 15 candidates. Mani accused him of disregarding an earlier formula under which each of the factions was to share the allotted number of seats equally and said his group would fight in a dozen constituencies. Though soon after the break came, both claimed they would continue in the udf, the bad blood between the two does not augur well for the ruling front.
In the last elections in May 1982, there was a bare difference of 1 percent in the votes polled by the two fronts- 48.23 per cent for the udf against 47.24 for the LDF. The elections due to be held on March 23 may well prove that the udf list-finely tuned by the Congress(I) to meet communal and caste considerations-shows greater sensitivity to ground conditions but at least one thing is definite: the Kerala voter has been presented with a clear choice.