Left leans on towering Vijayan in uphill battle to keep Kerala

THiruvananthapuram : As morning breaks, you distinguish him looming o'er the skyline. All on the 600-plus kilometres of the winding main road connecting Manjeshwaram, the northern-most constituency in Kerala bordering Karnataka’s Konkan region, to Parassala in the south, Pinarayi Vijayan’s face appears large in hoardings, with the message – Who else but the LDF. Every three or four kilometres, the tagline changes – enhanced welfare, timely disbursement of pensions, jobs, and tourism opportunities and so on. But the message is the same: There is no alternative to Vijayan, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader seeking a third consecutive term in office, a feat no politician in Kerala has achieved since the state was formed in 1957.At 81, Vijayan is chasing history; and his message is “vikasanam” (development). Admirers of the CM see in the hoardings a benign “captain” who has steered Kerala for a decade through choppy waters, including the 2018 floods and Covid years, to the harbour of “prosperity” and “development”; for his critics, the reduction of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to a single face marks the rise of a strongman cult defined by nepotism, cronyism, corruption, and the betrayal of democratic norms. Since 2016, Vijayan has towered over the CPI(M), upsetting the traditional balance between the party and the government. With VS Achuthanandan fading out after the 2016 election, there has been no other power centre in the party except Vijayan.In many ways, the CPI(M) and LDF have embarked on a gamble by betting solely on Vijayan, turning this assembly election to a referendum on his record and legacy.That record shows a government that invested heavily in public infrastructure, evident in new highways, roads, swanky offices, school buildings, and hospitals, most of it achieved with funds from the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board, a para government body for off-budget financial support. Critics claim that the state is heading into a debt trap, but the government has stuck to its guns by championing big projects such as a high-speed railway (K-rail) that face resistance from sections of the society that fear property fragmentation and loss of livelihoods.The CPI (M) expects the development narrative to override the campaigns of the United Democratic Front – the Congress-led Opposition – and of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which highlight issues such as the alleged theft of gold in the Sabarimala shrine and corruption. “I believe that our government has made a substantive difference to the lives of ordinary people through its investments in roads, inland waterways, a tunnel road connecting Wayanad with the plains,” said MA Baby, the CPI (M) general secretary who served as minister for education and culture from 2006 to 2011 under Achuthanandan.John Brittas, a CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP who worked closely with the CM, said there had been no “performer” such as Vijayan in Kerala’s recent history. “He recognised that Kerala had made gains on the social development front but lagged behind in creating a world-class infrastructure to build on it,” Brittas said.There has also been a perceptual shift in the Vijayan government’s attitude toward private capital. TI Madhusudhanan, who is seeking a third term as MLA from the CPI(M) stronghold of Payyannur, insisted that the party must change with the times or face irrelevance. He argues that the CPI(M)’s backing for entrepreneurs and big projects is essential to address the concerns of youth, who now migrate for aspirational jobs in IT and manufacturing. The CPI(M) endorsed the government’s pro-capital turn in its “Nava (new) Kerala” document at the party congress last year. In Kerala: India’s Miracle State, economic historians Tirthankar Ray and K Ravi Raman write, “Two decades into the new millennium, the state was one of the vanguards of the country’s post-liberalisation growth resurgence… By 2022, it represented another anomaly – a Marxist state presiding over a robust capitalist resurgence. Its income growth has been consistently and significantly above the national average since 2000.”This new wealth has visibly changed spending patterns, evident in a large number of malls, sprouting of shops selling niche and branded goods, coffee shops to patisseries even in small towns, and even social attitudes. A new middle-class has emerged, which is entrepreneurial in its instincts, replacing the old influential class comprising government employees, teachers etc. This social transformation has also considerably weakened the bargaining power of the working-class, especially those in the informal sector, and damaged the party’s relationship with the cultural Left. A perceived democracy deficit, magnified by overcentralisation of governance in the CM’s office and police, have contributed to the anti-Vijayan sentiment.K Satchidanandan, public intellectual and president, Kerala Sahitya Akademi, lamented that the government and the CPI(M) have focussed solely on addressing the needs of this elite new class and have ignored the rise of the BJP, communal polarisation, and Islamophobia in the state. “No one is against development, but we have to ask whose development,” he said.Is Left shifting its class interests?The government’s refusal to engage with ASHA workers, a crucial workforce in the healthcare sector, who went on strike demanding higher wages, was interpreted by many as evidence of the CPM’s new class interests.Besides, its record on civil liberties – a rise in encounters for instance – has triggered discontent among the broader Left constituency, which influences voter choices. The unexpected drubbing that the LDF received in the recent local bodies elections – the UDF had a 1.1 million lead in votes over the LDF – suggested that the increasing economic inequality despite the rise in incomes could turn into an electoral factor. In short, the political ground has shifted considerably since the 2021 election, which the LDF won with 99 (out of 140) seats.There are two other undercurrents that could undermine Vijayan’s bid for office. One, the possible consolidation of minorities against the CPI(M); and two, the BJP’s rise as the first choice of many Hindus in the state. The Communist parties have been a legatee of the social reform movement in the region and built their base through mobilisations of the poor and the working class. But its cadre has mostly been Hindus, who constitute about 54% of the state’s population. Anecdotal evidence suggests a shift in this vote – the upper caste Hindus initially, and now, the party’s traditional backbone, the Other Backward Classes Ezhava community – are veering towards the growing BJP.The CPI(M) leadership has sought to reverse the tide by adopting a political language that has alienated Muslims. The remarkable success in 2016 elections was evidently due to significant Muslim backing, in addition to focused government intervention during the 2018 floods and the Covid pandemic in the following years. That may be missing in this election, which can affect the party’s prospects, especially in the northern districts.However, the CPI(M) expects that any Muslim consolidation could trigger a counter mobilisation in favour of the LDF in the southern districts: The Muslim League is the second largest constituent in the UDF and a narrative persists that Muslims benefit more in a Congress regime.“This is just a polarising argument. The UDF works for all Malayalis, the development of communities in Kerala irrespective of gender, caste, faith, and class,” Shama Mohamed, national spokesperson for the Congress. The Social Democratic Party of India, seen as a radical outfit, is backing the UDF in some constituencies.There is one statistic that may be reassuring for the LDF. Since the delimitation of constituencies in 2008, there have been 59 seats that the LDF have won in three consecutive elections. The UDF has only 30 such “sure seats”. This and the short span for campaigning may be the reason why the LDF has repeated nearly all its incumbent MLAs, who need no introduction in their constituencies, and according to party insiders, remain popular. The UDF got just three weeks to introduce their candidates, many of them new, to voters: Elections were declared on March 15 and Kerala votes on April 9.For the CPI(M), this election is a do-or-die battle. If defeated, the party would not have a single state government for the first time in nearly 50 years. The current leadership and its choices will come under scrutiny from restive sections in the party: There has been an unprecedented flow of lower level functionaries and at least six former legislators to other parties, suggesting a collapse of old forms of political allegiance and communist loyalty as well as organisational stasis. A third win would transform the political character of the Left and the state itself, with serious consequences for the Congress.