With the last date for nominations in the State for the General Elections to the 15th Lok Sabha over, the political parties and the major fronts, LDF and the UDF have accelerated their electioneering. The BJP is also in the fray ,but to a lesser extent with the party expecting to do well in the State capital, Thiruvananthapuram, Kasargod and Palakkad constituencies.
The CPI-M led LDF and the Congress led UDF has turned the election into a communal campaigning with both the fronts wooing the Muslim vote-bank and the Muslim community with new found relationship with the extremist elements and organisations belonging to the Muslim political parties practicing extreme policies. The first in the block to reach to such a political alliance was the LDF with the CPI-M trying to capitalise on the release of Madani from Coimbatore central jail as a trump card to use the services of the fire brand orator. The party knows the popularity graph of Madani. The CPI-M which has traditionally being loosing the Ponnani and Malappauram seats with huge margins tasted blood when the party nominee TK Hamza trounced the Muslim League leader KPA Majeed who was not popular among the ordinary Muslims in the area.
The CPI-M would like to repeat the show in both the constituencies and the fielding of an independent candidate from Ponnani with the support of the Left parties was vehemently opposed by a furious CPI, the second largest constituent of the front. The CPI was sore that the CPI-M was deliberately taking away the seat due to the CPI which was contested for the past several decades by CPI leaders on the LDF ticket. The CPI openly conducted rebellion for the seat and it was after the intervention of national leaders like AB Bhardan and Prakash Karat that the CPI yielded to the preassure .The party was also allotted the Wayanad seat given to the sulking Janata Dal(S) by the CPI-M.
The CPI-M in an effort to counter the influence and the grass root support of the Indian Union Muslim League entered into an alliance with Abdul Nasser Madani and his People Democratic Party (PDP) which was considered as a political party with terror links, given the circumstantial evidences provided by several persons during his stay in Coimbatore central prison as an accused in the bomb attack against the BJP leader LK Advani. While Advani escaped unhurt, several party workers and ordinary people lost their lives.
Just as the CPI-M had entered into a clandestine political deal with the PDP, the Congress leaders including Shanawas and others organised several rounds of meetings with the leaders of the dreaded social organisation, NDF. The State and Central Police departments have been continuously warning the concerned governments on the threat posed by the NDF which has recently floated a political party named the Popular Front. The NDF has entered into an alignment with the Karnataka Forum for Dignity, (KFD) and Tamil Muslim Munneta Kazhakam. The NDF is accused of orchestrating and executing the Marad mass murder in which eight poor Hindu fishermen were lynched to death while they were relaxing after a hard day work.
Both the major political fronts are in a mood to enter into a clandestine arrangement with Islamist groups with backgrounds not according to what a socio-political organisation should do.
While the CPI-M has entered into a deal with Madani, considered as the Bindranwale of Kerala politics, the Congress new found friendship with the NDF and the recent visit of the Kerala Pradesh Congress president Ramesh Chennithala to meet certain Jamaet Islam leaders gives a picture as to how both the major fronts are capitalising on the Muslim vote-bank.
The BJP is trying hard for a victory to its State president and one of the energetic young leaders of the State PK Krishnadas, who is contesting the elections from the State capital in a multi-cornered contest with the former UN Under Secretary General Shashi Tharoor, former ministers MP Gangadharan, Neelalohithadas Nadar and the CPI district secretary Ramachandran Nair in the fray.With the former Union Minister O Rajagopal fetching more than 2.38 lakh votes, there are possibilities of Krishnadas edging a win in the multi cornered contest. If that happens there are clear possibilities of the political equation in the State changing.
