Kerala is all set to face five simultaneous assembly by-elections on October 21. While voters in Ernakulam, Aroor, Konni and Vattiyoorkkavu will vote to replace their legislators who had been elected to the Lok Sabha in the May general election, the by-poll in Manjeswaram was necessitated by the demise of current legislator P B Abdul Razak last year.
Though the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan faces no threat to its existence, the by-elections are crucial for all participants. While the opposition, United Democratic Front (UDF) has a formidable task of retaining four of its current seats, the CPI(M)-led LDF has to score big to recover from defeat in the parliamentary election. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will try hard to benefit from tight three-cornered contests in Vattiyoorkkavu in the south and Manjeswaram in the north.
Kerala was dragged into yet another election season starting with the assembly by-election in Pala, where Congress ally Kerala Congress (M) is leaving no stones unturned to defend the seat held by its supremo who passed away earlier this year. The Pala result would be out on September 27, weeks ahead of the rest of the by-polls. The seat divisions within the alliances are almost clear. The CPM will contest all five seats for the LDF. In the UDF, the Muslim League has a claim on Manjeswaram, while the rest of the seats belong to the Congress.
The BJP has agreed to let the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena contest from Aroor. The Congress-led alliance, UDF has to win Manjeswaram, Ernakulam, Konni and Vattiyoorkkavu to prove that it can keep the momentum attained at the Lok Sabha election victory. The front is even hopeful of wresting Aroor, which has been known as a CPM fortress for long. Though Arif scraped through to win the Alappuzha Lok Sabha constituency in May, he trailed behind Congress candidate Shanimol Usman at his home turf, Aroor.
If the voting pattern in Aroor assembly segment from just four months ago remains the same, UDF can claim all five seats as its own. The ruling LDF sought to explain the fiasco in the general election by reasoning that a section of its conventional constituency backed the UDF to keep the resurgent BJP at bay in the state. If the minorities are not drawn back to the LDF in the state-specific elections, the chief minister will be in a spot and he may have to admit that the government's decision to implement a Supreme Court order to allow all women to the Sabarimala shrine had backfired.
The by-elections will be seen as a portend to the upcoming local body elections and the state assembly election after that. The NDA The BJP-led alliance will focus on Manjeswaram, which the combine lost by a razor-thin 86 votes in 2016 assembly election, and Vattiyoorkkavu, where it trailed the winner Congress by 7,622 votes. The state leadership of the party desperately needs a victory to keep its dignity before the national leaders. The combination drew a blank in Kerala even as Narendra Modi roared back to power at the centre in the Lok Sabha elections. While Modi assumes an invincible aura at the national level, any dent in the party's votes in Kerala will cost the state leaders their jobs. Sensing trouble, the party is desperately searching for suitable candidates.