Lok Sabha Election Results: How Kerala voted in 2024? | Ep 114

[00:00:00] Hi, you are listening to Onmanorama's explainer podcast News Brake, a weekly show that breaks

[00:00:06] down news in a clutter free manner.

[00:00:08] This is Ashwin Jay Kumar and today we are here to discuss how Kerala voted this general

[00:00:13] election.

[00:00:14] A real surprise in Trissur, a thriller in Trivandrum and UDF sweeping Kerala Lok Sabha

[00:00:25] elections yet again.

[00:00:27] But what could be bigger than BJP backing Trissur in a Lok Sabha election in Kerala?

[00:00:33] I am joined by Onmanorama correspondents Iyappan, George and Rakesh who did extensive ground

[00:00:40] coverage and have closely followed this election.

[00:00:43] Let's start with BJP.

[00:00:45] They have been slowly increasing their vote share in Kerala and this time it was no

[00:00:49] different.

[00:00:50] They have increased their vote share.

[00:00:52] But what actually worked in favor of BJP in Kerala this time?

[00:00:56] George, can you tell us what actually helped BJP?

[00:00:59] When it comes to general election, I always felt that Kerala is an outlier or Kerala

[00:01:06] fails to read the Hindi heartland.

[00:01:09] In 2019, Kerala overwhelmingly voted for UDF expecting Rahul Gandhi as a strong prime

[00:01:16] minister but the Hindi heartland gave a strong verdict to the BJP and BJP emerged

[00:01:25] stronger.

[00:01:26] In 2019, Kerala expected BJP or Modi to emerge stronger and actually I think Kerala fell

[00:01:33] for, not just Kerala, South India fell for this Charso Par 400 plus and BJP has

[00:01:41] been reduced to around below 250.

[00:01:45] So again Kerala failed to read.

[00:01:48] But this election we can find similarities in 2020, 2021's election with 2004 election

[00:01:55] where UPA came to power but Kerala voted for LDF.

[00:01:59] LDF won 18 seats and that time NDA got one seat.

[00:02:04] This time again, so this is not, if you talk about alliance, this is not the first

[00:02:07] time NDA is winning a seat from Kerala.

[00:02:10] In 2004 when UPA came to power, NDA's ally PC Thomas won from Muatura and that

[00:02:18] time LDF had 18 seats and Congress just one seat.

[00:02:22] So this time just a role reversal, UDF gets 18 seats, one for NDA but this time it's

[00:02:29] BJP that's where it's a bit different.

[00:02:32] BJP winning is big different from, it's quite a different ball game in Kerala and

[00:02:37] then LDF gets one seat in Alad Toor.

[00:02:41] Rajesh, you went to Trissur, spoke to these candidates.

[00:02:46] So did this win come as a real surprise for you?

[00:02:49] To be frank, I didn't see it coming.

[00:02:51] I mean Suresh Kobi winning the seat during the campaign.

[00:02:55] I had come across clear signs of Suresh Kobi enjoying some support among the electorate.

[00:03:02] The people I spoke to, the people I interacted with like working women, auto drivers, shop

[00:03:09] owners, some of them had already made up their mind to vote for Suresh Kobi of

[00:03:15] course.

[00:03:16] But again the general reading was that there was a tough three way fight going on in the

[00:03:23] constituency especially with the entry of K. Murali therein as Congress candidate and

[00:03:30] by the end of the day there would be some kind of an anti-BJP consolidation which

[00:03:35] would favour either Murali or CPS Sunil Kumar.

[00:03:41] The overall assumption was that whoever wins the election, be it Murali or Sunil Kumar,

[00:03:48] the person would be, the candidate would be winning by a thin margin.

[00:03:52] But now the actual result has surpassed all those predictions and Suresh Kobi has won

[00:03:57] with a thumping majority of some 75,000.

[00:04:02] Now if you ask me what contributed to his victory, in hindsight it looks, to me it

[00:04:08] looks like the BJP had something we can call a project Suresh Kobi already in Trissur.

[00:04:15] I mean in Suresh Kobi they had the best bet.

[00:04:19] As we all know this was Suresh Kobi's third contest from Trissur.

[00:04:24] He made his electoral debut in Trissur in 2019 in the Lok Sabha elections and made

[00:04:33] an impressive show.

[00:04:35] He considerably increased the party's vote share.

[00:04:38] Then again he was fielded in the 2021 assembly polls though unsuccessfully.

[00:04:46] But even after that he continued to work within the constituency and his candidate for

[00:04:52] the 2024 Lok Sabha polls was announced much in advance giving him some kind of an advantage.

[00:04:59] But if you ask me what worked most in favour of him, it was of course his image,

[00:05:06] maybe more than as an actor, his track record as a dedicated philanthropist or charity

[00:05:15] worker must have worked among the electorate.

[00:05:19] And it seems he enjoyed the support of a wide section of women voters in the

[00:05:24] constituency.

[00:05:25] In the past few years he has been able to make inroads into different communities

[00:05:32] including different denominations of the church.

[00:05:36] I think all these things worked in favour of him.

[00:05:42] Rajesh made use of two words like groundwork, track record.

[00:05:47] Now this brings us to the valid question.

[00:05:49] What went wrong for the LDF because they went into the campaign or rather elections

[00:05:54] of fielding sitting MLAs, ministers, politburo members.

[00:05:58] It was like showcasing the cream of what they had yet they failed to make an impact.

[00:06:03] So what do you think?

[00:06:04] Where did they go wrong?

[00:06:05] Was it the campaign tactic or was it the anti-incumbency?

[00:06:08] What do you think?

[00:06:09] Ashwin, I think LDF is a very curious case.

[00:06:16] They have this consecutive historic win in the assembly and now in the Lok Sabha

[00:06:21] they are having a consecutive big fall.

[00:06:26] In fact this time, this fall perhaps must have come as a surprise to even them because

[00:06:32] there were not much headwinds this time.

[00:06:35] Because there were no faith related issues.

[00:06:37] There was no Shabarimala like situation now and they managed to endure themselves

[00:06:46] to minorities or at least that is what we felt because their focus of the campaign

[00:06:53] was their resistance against the Citizenship Amendment Act and they also managed to get

[00:07:00] the support or at least it seems so, the support of the most influential scholarly

[00:07:06] body, Samastha Jamayatul Ulima.

[00:07:09] They got their support too.

[00:07:13] But I thought the countervailing force was the anti-incumbency because on the

[00:07:19] one hand there were governance issues.

[00:07:22] You mean financial crisis?

[00:07:24] Financial crisis was one, man-animal conflict was one.

[00:07:28] Then there was Siddharth's murder which was emblematic of campus violence.

[00:07:35] Then there was this politics of murder, Panur accidental bomb blast and it was in

[00:07:41] the midst of the campaign that the High Court verdict came.

[00:07:47] T.P. Chandrasegaran's murder, High Court verdict confirming the life sentence for the accused.

[00:07:52] So there were these governance and political issues on one side and then on the other

[00:07:59] was the serious corruption charges leveled against the Chief Minister and his family.

[00:08:05] So it was a competitive thing between the two.

[00:08:12] I think for the voters it must have been a choice between the two.

[00:08:16] Are they, do they stand for minority?

[00:08:19] I mean is the CPM or the LDF a better bet to take on BJP at the centre or is the

[00:08:30] LDF an inept and corrupt group?

[00:08:33] And I think the second one that they are inept, inefficient and corrupt trumped the

[00:08:39] other and that I think is the result, is led to this massive fall.

[00:08:46] So for me I think this was a verdict against the LDF rather than a verdict for the LDF.

[00:08:53] What do you think about that BJP strategy because when Patmada, Patmada just switched

[00:08:59] to BJP, CPM kind of campaigned actively saying that if you vote for Congress eventually

[00:09:06] they will end up in BJP but EP Jayarajan's association with Rajiv Chandra Shekhar became

[00:09:12] a hot debate.

[00:09:13] Did that backfire?

[00:09:15] The first one I don't think it worked at all.

[00:09:20] That was not in the mind of the voter when they went to vote.

[00:09:22] That Congress leaders are shifting to the BJP, they can easily be lured away.

[00:09:27] That didn't work and I think the other would have played in the minds of the

[00:09:31] voters.

[00:09:32] You mean Jayarajan's?

[00:09:33] Jayarajan's because there was this, even though it has not been proved, there is a

[00:09:38] strong suspicion that the LDF had some links with the BJP.

[00:09:43] That might have worked, that might have been the undercurrent.

[00:09:45] You mean for the first time voters would have mistrusted CPM?

[00:09:50] Mistrusted CPM, that I think is the undercurrent.

[00:09:52] There must have been a feeling that they were hand in glove with the BJP, that

[00:09:57] the LDF was, especially the CPM was hand in glove with the BJP.

[00:10:02] Rahul Gandhi and Puriyanka Gandhi came to Kerala and accused Pinaray Vijayan of having

[00:10:09] Modi's patronage.

[00:10:10] It has not been proved, it is just a wild charge but I think people tend to believe

[00:10:15] this.

[00:10:16] Delegations of the years.

[00:10:17] That might have worked as an undercurrent.

[00:10:19] So I have been confused that it is a vote against the LDF rather than a vote

[00:10:24] for the UDF but when UDF went into the election there were so many issues to grapple

[00:10:29] with in fighting disagreement, dissent among the leadership.

[00:10:33] So how important is this victory for the UDF, especially the leadership, Congress

[00:10:38] leadership in Kerala?

[00:10:39] Throughout the campaign one prominent theme that we all could sense was that there

[00:10:45] was a strong anti-government sentiment, especially I would even say an anti-Pinaray

[00:10:51] Vijayan sentiment across the state and it has evidently reflected in the result.

[00:10:57] And obviously Congress and its allies have turned out to be the natural beneficiaries

[00:11:04] of this anti-incumbency trend or sentiments.

[00:11:08] But again I think a victory of this source, a victory of this scale was inevitable for

[00:11:15] the Congress leadership in the state especially after the shock defeat it suffered in the

[00:11:21] 2021 assembly polls.

[00:11:25] As we all know the Congress leadership underwent an overhaul after the 2021 drought and this

[00:11:31] was the major test for the new leadership under K Sudhagar and B. D. Sathishan.

[00:11:40] So a below par or an average show in this crucial election would of course put their

[00:11:48] leadership abilities at stake.

[00:11:52] So I think this kind of gives the much needed impetus for the Congress leadership as well

[00:11:59] as the machinery in the state.

[00:12:01] But again I think the BJP's performance especially in Trissur and Tiruvananthapuram

[00:12:09] has kind of changed the political equations or the political landscape in the state.

[00:12:14] So when they go to the next election which is due in 2026 or even the local body

[00:12:22] elections later for 2025, I think the Congress leadership will have to think beyond the existing

[00:12:29] strategies which were tailored for the traditional two way fight between the LDF and UDF.

[00:12:37] To add to Ragesh's point, BJP has come up number one in many assembly constituency

[00:12:44] in this election especially in South Kerala, in Alapura, Patanandita and Trivandrum.

[00:12:50] So they would have to, the UDF and LDF would have to gear up for a three way fight in

[00:12:54] the coming assembly election.

[00:12:58] George, before we conclude let's talk about Vadagara because we all were kind of expecting

[00:13:04] a very tough close fight between KK Shailaja and Shafi Parambil.

[00:13:10] Especially the way the campaign progressed there were a lot of communal campaigns,

[00:13:13] mere campaigns, a lot of things happened during the campaign.

[00:13:16] But still for Shafi, when you look at the final figures it seemed like a very smooth

[00:13:20] sale for Shafi.

[00:13:23] Can you tell us how Shafi managed to do so?

[00:13:26] Vadagara enviously got the best two candidates if you see across the state.

[00:13:31] Vadagara got the best two candidates in KK Shailaja and Shafi Parambil.

[00:13:37] But the campaign turned nasty.

[00:13:41] And I think going by the verdict, CPM made some strategic mistakes.

[00:13:47] They misread Vadagara.

[00:13:49] Vadagara is a very political constituency.

[00:13:53] If you look at from 1957, Vadagara has been consistently sending a socialist member

[00:14:00] of parliament to Delhi.

[00:14:06] LDF first got a grip on the constituency in 1996 when Bharathan,

[00:14:16] the trade unionist, won from that constituency.

[00:14:24] And it's not the first time a woman or a female candidate has represented Vadagara.

[00:14:33] If Shailaja had won, she would have been the third female candidate.

[00:14:37] And if you look at all these things, CPM ran a campaign or CPM allegedly ran a campaign

[00:14:45] or CPM is accused of running a campaign portraying Shafi as a Muslim candidate.

[00:14:51] And Vadagara is not a constituency which picks its representative on communal lines.

[00:14:57] And that I think it backfired in Vadagara.

[00:15:01] On the eve of the election, there was a fake message that hit Vadagara saying that Shailaja

[00:15:11] is a kafir and Shafi is a devout Muslim.

[00:15:16] And you should vote for Shafi because he's a devout Muslim.

[00:15:23] I think no one in Vadagara bought that message.

[00:15:27] It was alleged to be written by a MSF leader.

[00:15:31] But nobody in Vadagara bought that allegation that it came from the IUML's corner.

[00:15:38] And people thought it is a handiwork of CPM.

[00:15:43] These things worked in favor of, despite Shailaja having a very credible image in Vadagara.

[00:15:52] To sum it up, the number of UDF seats in this Lok Sabha election from Kerala

[00:15:57] will give a major boost to India block at the national level.