Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Seat-sharing a tough call for LDF

C. Gouridasan Nair

Minor LDF allies keep their fingers crossed

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the CPI(M) deciding to contest a larger number of seats than last time and the allies resolving to resist any such move to the best of their ability, the Opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) is likely to find sharing of seats for the upcoming Assembly election a tough call.

The complexity of the exercise would manifest as the LDF State committee meets here on Tuesday to begin multilateral discussions on seat sharing for the Assembly polls.

It is the CPI(M) that calls the shots in the LDF and the party has already decided to contest 90 seats, up from the 77 seats it had contested in the last Assembly election.

This would imply that the party has decided to take 13 seats from its allies who contested the 63 remaining seats in the following order: CPI 24, Janata Dal 12, Nationalist Congress Party 11, Kerala Congress (Joseph) 10 and RSP six.

The CPI and the RSP have already tried to pre-empt the CPI(M) bid to take away their seats by raising the demand for a higher number of seats.

The other LDF constituents are currently living in fear of being divested of a fair share of their seats or are reconciled to such a possibility.

The CPI(M) decision to contest in 90 seats was something taken in isolation. It was part of a larger game plan that also featured electoral adjustments with the Democratic Indira Congress(Karunakaran).

The calculation at the time was that with the DIC(K) providing added vigour, the LDF would be able to sweep the polls and the CPI(M) gain a majority on its own. This would have meant that even if the DIC(K) chose to break away from the LDF on some future date and returned to its parent vessel, the CPI(M) would remain in firm control of governance. But that was not to be.

The CPI(M) Polit Bureau decision not to touch DIC(K) and the consequent party State committee decision to that effect have meant that the CPI(M) cannot be all that brash with its allies now. At least the CPI and the RSP have sensed this changed context and that explains the loud noises being made by the two.

If information available from LDF sources is true, the bilateral discussions between the three parties, held roughly a week ago, were far from cordial.

Neither the CPI nor the RSP was willing to accommodate the front leader's demand for additional seats from their kitty, but both were agreeable to exchange of seats provided they were compensated adequately.

With this end in view, the CPI has already raised the demand that any seat to be taken from the minor allies must be put in a common pool for division among the major allies.

But, since the intention of the CPI(M) is not to share the spoils of any such exercise with the allies, this is not going to happen. The CPI and the RSP also know that.

They also know that they can hedge risks arising from aggressive strategies of the CPI(M) only by upping the ante.

There are indications that the CPI(M) is averse to upsetting Left unity for a few seats more and that is straw that the two Left parties might be able to cling to in these sinking times, though barely.

Nationalist Congress Party, Janata Dal (Secular) and the Kerala Congress (Joseph) may have to part with some seats. The NCP because it has suffered a vertical split, the JD(S) because of a reassessment of its ground presence by the CPI(M) and the KC(J) on account of a split, though minor, leading to the formation of the KC (Secular), which has itself split recently. The CPI(M) is angling to get the 13 seats it needs to touch the 90 mark by easing these parties of some of their load and, may be, take one or two here and there from the two Left allies.

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