Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Worries abound for LDF

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The devastating setback in the local body elections could not have come at a worse time for the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF).

With the Assembly elections barely six months away, the ruling alliance has a lot to worry about now.

The poll outcome, showing a clear advantage for the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) in both urban and rural local bodies, indicate that the Opposition was successful in whipping up a wave in its favour across the State and that the poll strategy of the Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPI-M) had little in it to carry the ruling front to safety, and worse, had a lot in it to harm its cause.

Given the nature of the verdict, it will be hard to rule out a strong anti-incumbency mood among the electorate across the State.

The UDF's success in unleashing a focussed campaign over State-level issues, such as the lottery scam, may be one of the major reasons for this, but there will be others such as the inability of the CPI(M) to put its own house in order and the way it virtually drove out parties with local-level clout out of the alliance. On issues such as the lottery scam, the government was seen to be pulling in opposite directions with Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan being seen as proactive even as the rest of the government and the alliance seemed far from decisive in their response to the whole issue. The State government's argument that the onus of controlling the other-State lottery mafia rested with the Centre fell flat with each new development.

Row with church

The strong showing by the UDF in the central districts suggest that the CPI(M) bid to take on the Church was counterproductive. It did not win the LDF the votes of the majority community and resulted only in hardening of Christian votes.

The crushing defeat that the LDF suffered in the Thrissur Corporation and the loss of the Kochi Corporation, which it had been controlling for the past three decades, could be the direct fallout of this. It could even be the case that the real beneficiary of the anti-Church campaign of the CPI(M) was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has put in a noteworthy showing in some of these districts.

Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and CPI(M) State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan have described the setback temporary, but CPI State secretary Veliyam Bhargavan has, in his initial response to the poll outcome, admitted that an anti-incumbency mood might also have influenced the outcome to a certain extent.

When the UDF routed the LDF in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Opposition had led in 100 Assembly segments. This time, it should be a matter of relief for the LDF that the number of constituencies where the UDF has sway will be less than that figure, when the counting of votes in Kozhikode is completed.

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