Kerala Assembly Polls: Will High Voter Turnout crush the Lotus Dream?

A snapshot of the results of the previous five Assembly elections along with those of the 2009 Lok Sabha election tabulated above should make it evident why unlike Tamil Nadu which is a psephologist’s nightmare; Kerala, God’s own Country, is their paradise.

Like Tamil Nadu, Kerala has two major alliances but unlike it, the constituents of each alliance do not drastically change in character from election to election. We do not find a PMK for example alternatively shifting to rival alliances here in Kerala and if they do, they will be wiped out.  Alliances in Kerala are more ideological based rather than dictated on electoral arithmetic considerations as in Tamil Nadu. The two alliances alternatively take turns to rule the state every five years which makes it a psephologist’s delight.

To the runup to the polls on April 13th, there had been a spate of opinion polls who unanimously predicted that the Congress led United Democratic Front (UDF) will wrest away the control of government from current CPM led Left Democratic Front (LDF).  Where these polls diverge is in their projection of vote and seat shares for the respective alliances as seen below

A poll of poll indicates that the UDF leads the LDF between 6-6.5 percentage points. Asianet 1 stands out as deviating most from the average, and suggests it’s a much closer contest with the UDF lead projected hardly around 4%. While the average (for the last 5 assembly elections) votes polled by other minor parties including the BJP, BSP and independents stand around 8.68%, Asianet 1 further suggests that this category could more than double this elections! 

Vote wise, all are unison that those of the combined UDF-LDF will decline while the others category will increase though they differ on the intensity of this trend. Asianet 1 & 2 go further to predict that BJP’s vote share will increase dramatically this elections. Though it raised alot of eyebrows, the fact is that BJP managed to cross double digits for the Panchayat (local body) elections held October of last year, whose momentum growth many expect to increase this Assembly elections. 

Seat wise the poll of polls projects the UDF with 88-92 seats; the LDF between 48-51 seats and others including the BJP around 3 seats.The India Today opinion poll is the closest to the result of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls where the UDF led in 98 and the LDF in 39 assembly segments respectively. Though all the forecasts show the combined UDF-LDF’s vote share declining, all agree that it has no significant impact on seat share of  "Other" parties and independents. However the Asianet 1 opinion poll raised alot of eyebrows when it suggested that BJP could open its account with a bang, getting up to 5 seats. Their second poll however scaled back this claim to just 2 seats!

The voter turnout for these elections held on April 13th was a whopping 75.12% and the highest in the Assembly elections since 1991. But historically, this is no where the highest - the 1987 election where the turnout clocked 80.53 percent catapulting the LDF to power with EK Nayanar leading the Government.

All the same, would the the turnout be exceptional that it could  negate those projected by opinion polls as made out by the media? 

It does not appear so. It is in fact just a tad below 75.16 percent turnout touched in the local body election of October last year and  two percent more than recorded as during the Lok Sabha elections. In both instances, the UDF swept the polls - the local body elections last October, more convincingly swept.

The lead of the UDF over the LDF during the Panchayat polls was nearly 8%. If repeated in the Assembly polls, then India Today forecast is best likely to reflect the final result than Asianet. It is to be kept in mind that in in Kerala, more than 10 seats can change hands with the swing of less than 1 per cent of the votes. In fact in 1987, the LDF with a miniscule margin of 0.63% secured 16 seats more than the UDF and in 1991; the UDF with a 2% margin commanded 40 seats more than its LDF rival. So if historical trends prevail and if the Panchayat voting pattern repeats itself, then the UDF should be looking for at least 110 seats or more in an Assembly with a total of 140 seats. If so, all opinion polls, including India Today would find their face covered with mud!

In the last decade, every assembly and Lok Sabha election, the BJP had made it a practice to claim that they will open their account in Kerala, only to come a cropper.  

So is it empty rhetoric or is there more solidity to their claims this time round? 

Apparently this time these claims are more serious. In the October local body polls, the BJP almost doubled the number of seats, from 550 in 2005 to more than 970 seats. It also came second in more than 1,000 seats. The party has got significant representation in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation — six seats — two in Kochi, one in Thrissur and 76 seats in various municipalities, the highest of 15 in Palakkad municipality. The party candidates finished runners-up in eight wards in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation. The party will play a crucial role in deciding the rulers in four municipalities.

Infused with this success, the central BJP leadership is determined to ensure that the party gets at least one seat. The party’s senior leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Ms Sushma Swaraj was given the charge of the Kerala election campaign by the national leadership. National president Nitin Gadkari, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, etc campaigned in Kerala. A section of the media and the Asianet poll claimed that the BJP will get as many as 5 seats!

There several reasons why this is could be just a piped dream. The first is that while BJP harps of 5 winnable seats, they actually taking about five they have a presence, out of which only two- Nemom in Thiruvananthapuram district and Manjeswaram in Kasargod district they can give a tight three way fight. The latter is very different from saying that they are winnable. While the former Union minister and one of the best known faces of the BJP, O Rajagopal, is contesting from Nemom, the party's firebrand young leader K Surendran who is currently the state general secretary of the party is fighting from Manjeswaram in Kasargod district .

Out of these two constituencies, Manjeswaram is the BJP’s best bet to open its account. The late K G Marar of the BJP had lost the Manjeswaram assembly seat in 1991 by a whisker to the Muslim League's Cherkulam Abdullah. The BJP has always been runner up in Manjeswaram ever since. The question is why for 20 years they could not have a breakthrough? In a constituency like Manjeswaram with a sizeable minority population, while it is possible to scrap through Panchayats with a Hindu majority, it becomes difficult at the Assembly level as it is constituted by several Panchayats so much so it is difficult to win it without some support from the minority community. The track record of BJP in protecting minority rights in the states ruled by them frightens the minorities to instinctively practice tactical voting - consolidating votes behind a non-BJP candidate most likely seen by them as having the best chances of defeating the BJP candidate. Factional conflicts inside the party had weakened the BJP. The party was also allegedly involved in sale of votes.

So while BJP will certainly be elated if they opened their account in Kerala, they will be pretty pleased if their party demonstrate a “strong presence” in the Assembly election as their National leader Sushma Swaraj prefers to describe their prospects.