Author: Arun Lakshman/ Kochi
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 15, 2004
The NDA has finally entered Kerala's
political firmament, hitherto dominated by either the Congress-led UDF
or the CPM-led LDF. For the first time in the state's electoral history,
the voter exercised a third political option in the figure of NDA candidate
PC Thomas, Union Minister of State for Law and Justice in the Vajpayee
Cabinet. Mr Thomas cracked the state's age-old mould to post a victory
with a margin of 529 votes in a tight three-cornered contest with the LDF
and the UDF from the Muvattupuzha constituency in Kochi district.
P M Ismail, the consensus candidate
of the LDF, came a close second while the Congress-supported UDF candidate
Jos K Mani was a distant third. Mr Thomas has won this seat consecutively
for the past five Lok Sabha polls as a UDF candidate with the highest margins.
Mr Thomas, along with former MP
Scaria Thomas, were ousted from the Kerala Congress (Mani) by party leader
K M Mani after they challenged the back-door entry of the leader's son
into the party as a candidate in the last Assembly polls. Mr K M Mani insists
the two were expelled because they entered into an unholy alliance with
the BJP. The duo refuted this, asserting that they were removed to pave
the way for Mr Mani's son. When Ms Jos K Mani became the UDF's Lok Sabha
candidate from Muvattupuzha, they were proved right which lent sympathy
to Mr Thomas's campaign.
What lent credibility to Mr Thomas's
association with the NDA were comments by the Archbishop of the Syro Malabar
Church, Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil. He said that if he had to make a choice
"between a non-performing Catholic and a good Hindu", he would "cast his
preference for the Hindu". He also said his followers were free to join
any political party including the BJP. Jacobite Christians, who wield considerable
influence in the constituency, also lent support to Mr Thomas.
Another interesting aspect of these
elections was the Muslim voting pattern. According to reliable intelligence
reports, the Islamic fundamentalist organisation, the NDF, had commissioned
a survey of the Muvattupuzha constituency immediately after the polls were
announced and found that Mr Thomas's electoral stocks were high. The outfit
initiated a door-to-door campaign asking Muslim voters to go with the candidate
in direct contest with Mr Thomas, in this case, the LDF nominee, Mr Ismail.
As a result the two-lakh strong Muslim community in this constituency voted
en bloc for the LDF.
For the first time in the electoral
history of Kerala, in these elections, the voter was able to opt for a
third party candidate instead of the time-tested LDF and UDF combines.
Earlier, voters went with one front or the other, in the belief that they
would waste their vote on a BJP-led front which was not seen as a serious
player in Kerala's electoral theatre.
These elections witnessed a marked
increase in the vote share of the NDA - from 7.5 per cent to 12.1 per cent.
In Thiruvananthapuram, Union Minister O Rajgopal came third with more than
2,25,000. Notably, he was only 3000 votes short of V S Sivakumar of the
Congress. The NDA impressively crossed the psychological barrier of one-lakh
votes, with Palghat and Kasargode notching up admirable figures in addition
to Muvattupuzha and Thiruvananthapuram.
The presence of NDA candidate S
Krishnakumar ensured the defeat of former AICC Secretary Ramesh Chennithala
from Mavelikkara, a traditional Congress stronghold.
