At last the LS election results are at one’s finger tips. Keralites are taken by surprise to come across the results in the twenty constituencies in the state. Nineteen out of 20 went to the kitties of Congress-led UDF. And, CPM-led LDF, the ruling apparatus in the state, has to find solace in a single seat win, that is Alappuzha.
But, the most heartening is the nil win of BJP. Because party had meaningful dreams of bagging at least three seats. The defeat of Kummanam Rajasekharan, the former Governor of Missoram, from the capital Tiruvananthapuram is a hard fact even for people who do not belong to Sangh-inspired school of thought. In 2014 veteran BJP leader O. Rajagopal had lost the same constituency to Sasi Tharoor with a margin of about 15,500 votes. But, this time Sasi Tharoor got the margin of about 100,000 votes. And, CPI’s veteran candidate came to the third position. In Pathanamthitta, the constituency Shabarimala belongs to, BJP’s popular leader K. Surendran landed in the 3rd position. Another hopeful one was Thrissur, where matinee idol Suresh Gopi MP (RS) fought against Congress and CPI. Here also BJP came to the third position.
One does not have to roam day and night and every nook and corner to trace the reason for this fiasco. It is as simple as daylight. CPM resorted to cross voting in those constituencies where BJP was all set to win. All remember what the CPM leaders and Rahul Gandhi had told the media, before the elections, about their modus operandi. State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and LDF convener and senior CPM leader A. Vijayaraghavan had clearly told prior to the elections that their party would see that BJP candidates do not romp home. Because, they did not want Narendra Modiji to retain the power. Seetaram Yechury had told the same idea in different terminologies. Rahul Gandhi told couple of times that they (media men) would not hear anything from him against CPM.
Therefore, it was crystal clear that there was a concrete understanding between both CPM and Congress. They were hand-in-glove to kill the BJP chances to win.
Still, despite this sort of unholy and dirty nexus, BJP could improve its votes share. It rose to 15.59 % from 15.01 % , the votes share of assembly elections of 2016. It is to be noted that BJP vote share in the LS elections of 2014 was hardly 11 %.
An important issue to note is that Congress and UDF took the advantage of Shabarimala agitation of BJP and other Hindu organizations. They effectively campaigned against CPM for hurting the feelings of Hindus in Shabarimala issue. The same time, they won in their endeavour of polarizing the Hindu and Muslim votes raising the fake RSS bogey.
In short what we saw in Kerala was the most immoral and adharmik model of electoral politics. And, BJP’s nationalistic and straight forward politics was pushed to the receiving end.
