Kerala exceptionalism prevails

By TP Sreenivasan
Lives and livelihoods assumed greater significance than allegations of corruption and nepotism in the Kerala elections. The Left Democratic Front (LDF) has won, as expected, on the strength of its performance during two floods, several viral challenges, including the pandemic, which was highlighted in its campaign.
The United Democratic Front (UDF) unearthed several sensational scandals, including gold smuggling, favouritism and reckless extravagance in publicity, but made no impact as these have come to be accepted in politics, regardless of parties. Both the fronts had even their own femmes fatales! The delivery of welfare and development have diminished the gravity of the allegations.
Kerala is proud of its exceptionalism, with its own political equations, which are different from the rest of the country.
As the only Communist elected government in the world today, it has developed its own philosophy and systems with Kerala characteristics such as accepting religion as indispensable.
In the context of Sabarimala, LDF claimed that if gods had votes, they would vote for the LDF. The disconnect between the governments in New Delhi and Kerala are so wide that the state does not get the benefits, which are due to it.
A handicap of both BJP and Congress is that they are seen as being controlled by the RSS and the High Command respectively, who do not understand the needs of Kerala. As far as LDF is concerned, even the politburo is largely from Kerala.
The campaigns by central leaders for these fronts were counterproductive. Even Rahul and Priyanka did not make much difference because of the impression that the Gandhi family was losing control over the party because of the emergence of the reformists known as G-23.
Projecting Shashi Tharoor, a member of G-23, as the architect of the UDF manifesto misfired because the Congress leaders in Kerala have been critical of him as a “guest artist”, not conversant with Kerala’s concerns and needs. Such fixes completely undermined the leader of the opposition, Ramesh Chennithala, who fought valiantly with incorrigible optimism.
The historic nature of the results is that the automaticity of government change every five years has ended. This means that Kerala has become completely polarised, as public opinion may not be swayed by performance in future. For a government which performs well can expect to work seamlessly if anti-incumbency feelings are not compulsive.
Groupism and undue interference from the High Command, which itself is divided were the handicaps of the Congress. Whatever was done in terms of selection of candidates was too little too late. At a time when Kerala is looking inward, bringing a talented professional from outside did not help. But some of the talented young Congress leaders like Shafi Parambil, VD Satheesan, PC Vishnunath, Mathew Kuzhalnadan and T Siddique have managed to be in the legislature to fight the battles of the future.
The BJP had exaggerated expectations and its claims were baseless and unrealistic. With its Hindu identity, the BJP can succeed in Kerala only if the main Hindu organisations join it and the Keralites begin to relate to the leadership of PM Narendra Modi . The induction of Metroman E Sreedharan as presumptive chief minister made no difference to the fortunes of the BJP and his own judgment was called into question. Strangely, both BJP and the Congress dismissed the survey results out of hand.
The challenges of the new government in Kerala are humongous, with the worsening pandemic and critical economic situation. The hope and expectation are that chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, with his rich experience of the last few years, will be able to carry the whole state with him in his quest for a better Kerala.
The writer a former ambassador of India