Tag Archives: elections

Elections Declared: Whom to Vote

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EVM
Voters of Kerala, which goes to Assembly polls on April 6 , will have to be very diligent in casting their votes. (The same goes for other States too).
Otherwise, your suffrage would be undermined by your elected representative choosing to change sides. The political climate in the country is such that it is not easy to predict who would be changing their loyalties and when. Here is an advisory.

Do not vote for the candidates who are liable to be blackmailed because of their involvement in crime or corrupt practices. Avoid voting for greedy politicians. If your candidate has wealth beyond his known sources of income, never vote for him or her. (They are in politics for amassment of wealth and they will change the side the moment they get a good offer.)

Avoid voting for candidates of small parties which are prone to change sides. There are a few exceptions  in this regard like CPI and CMP which has not switched sides for  decades (four and two and half decades respectively).  Most have changed sides or split with groups migrating from one front to another. New parties such as the Twenty-twenty are to be judged by the caliber and integrity of the candidates they are putting up.  If it is a retired civil servant, check whether they had faced allegations of corruption. If it is a media person or businessman, evaluate his or her professional conduct. If they had been honest, fair and ethical, they may not change sides.

BJP State president K.  Surendran has stated that BJP will rule Kerala if 30 to 40 of its candidates are elected. This is to be taken seriously because seven State governments have been brought down by the BJP in the last seven years by engineering defections. Actually, the party will not need even that many members to gain a share in power in Kerala. 

It is notable that the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Kerala, is yet to State the reasons for malfunctioning of electronic voting machines during last Lok Sabha  polls despite an order from the State Information Commission to release the information under RTI Act.

Keep an eye on the legislators and the voting machines too. Ensure that your verdict is not miscarried.

“Democracy’s a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it’s no longer democracy, is it? It’s something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.” Sam Shepard

Kerala Assembly elections: Congress needs a paradigm shift

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It will be an uphill task for Congress in Kerala to win the Assembly elections this year. The party will have to reinvent and meet new challenges.

Congressmen will have to forget its group squabbles and seat sharing and come up with a new array of candidates who could win the elections. It is also time for a generation shift.

The Congress has taken a big risk by alienating Kerala Congress (M) so that it could try to dominate in the UDF strong-hold of Kottayam— a long-standing dream of Congress men from the district such as the Kottayam MLA, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan. They thought that the death of Kerala Congress leader K. M. Mani gave them the opportunity. However, erosion of votes seen in the panchayat elections even in former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s constituency (Puthuppally) showed that the dream is a difficult one to realise, though Mr. Chandy and Mr. Radhakrishnan will be able to hold their fort. In the strongholds of Ernakulam district, the emergence of Twenty Twenty as a political party is throwing up a new challenge.

These would force the Congress to pay special attention to districts which are not their strongholds and cut losses in districts such as Pathanamthitta. In this scheme of things, Thiruvananthapuram district becomes one where the party has to fight some important battles especially against the BJP.

It has been suggested that top Congress leaders like Oommen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala should contest from Thiruvananthapuram to wrest the Nemom seat from the BJP and the Vattiyoorkavu seat from the CPI (M). However, the leaders were not willing to move out of their pocket boroughs.  Obviously, they could fail in Thiruvananthapuram if BJP and CPI (M) come to a tactical understanding behind the scenes. Many are already concluding that the BJP is forcing Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan for some adjustment, as a quid pro quo against Central agencies going slow on the probes on involvement of the Chief Minister’s Office and some Ministers and Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan in gold smuggling and other scams. Now, the party is trying to persuade V. M. Sudheeran to contest from Vattiyoorkavu while the strategies for other constituencies are not yet clear.

The party has members of Parliament Rajmohan Unnithan and K. Sudhakaran to hold the fort in Kasaragod and Kannur districts respectively. But K. Muraleedharan, MP, has stated that he would campaign only in his constituency (Vadakara), pointing to ongoing infighting in the party.

Though the honesty and suave manners of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is no match for the divisive politics of Narendra Modi at the national level, the presence of the Wayanad MP can cast a spell in Kerala.  But this has to be matched with selection of inspiring young leaders to win strong-holds of the CPI (M). Names such as that of AICC spokesperson Shama Mohamed has come up in this regard. Congress will also have to think of fielding winnable candidates from outside the party also as the stock of the khadi-wielding politicians with no worthwhile job of their own (other than politics) is fast diminishing. But the scramble for seats among party men has always prevented Congress from scouting for talents outside.

Yet, the party is showing some signs of mending. It is drawing up a well-studied manifesto under the leadership of Shashi Tharoor and other qualified persons.  However, barring Mr. Tharoor, the social media presence of Congress and its outreach to the young are still poor compared to BJP and the CPI (M). Though Congress men are active here and there solo, there is no coordinated action to project policies or political views. In fact, many leaders are found wanting or afraid to take on BJP and even the CPI (M).  This is why it is important for the party have a new generation of leaders with no baggage from the past to carry.

Skeletons are being pushed out in Kerala

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posters

LSG election campaign posters in Thiruvananthapuram

Skeletons were not tumbling out but were being pushed out in Kerala as campaign for elections to the local self government intensified.

Election is an occasion when adjustment politics becomes difficult if you are not in alliance. So, every move by one Front or party is to be countered by the other.

In the initial phase of the campaign, the Opposition Left Democratic Front was not speaking much about the bar-bribery case though it had laid waste an entire session of the Assembly over the issue a few months back.

However, when the Vigilance Court directed that the probe into the case should be continued, it was hardly an opportunity to be missed amidst the campaign. As Opposition met even the Governor seeking ouster of Finance Minister K. M. Mani, in view of the court observation that there was prima facie a case against him.

Suddenly, skeletons in the LDF cupboard started falling, or being pulled out. News was leaked that the Vigilance was dropping the corruption case against former Minister Elamaram Kareem in Chakkittappara iron ore mining case. Mr. Kareem was alleged to have received Rs. 5 crore as bribe for granting permission to illegal iron ore mining. The Vigilance reported that Mr. Kareem had not received any bribes and also that the case was obsolete.

The allegations against V. A. Arunkumar, son of Opposition Leader V. S. Achuthanandan, too got a fresh run with news reports that the Vigilance had recommended prosecution of Mr. Arunkumar for financial irregularities in Coirfed where he had been the Managing Director. Apparently, the recommendation was ready to be leaked out at the right moment.

SNDP Yogam General Secretary Vellappally Natesan, who started dreaming of a new political party and cobbled some sort of alliance with the BJP also met with a similar fate. The allegations surrounding the drowning of Swami Swaswathikanda of Sivagiri Mutt suddenly resurfaced with imputations that he had been murdered. Allegations about involvement of Mr. Natesan and his son were made by the very person (Kerala Bar Hotel Owners Association Working President Biju Ramesh) who had raised allegations against Mr. Mani also. Obviously, he has Opposition support as CPI (M) would be the worst hit by Natesan’s alliance.

Faced with the allegations and certain uncertainties over the alliance with BJP, Mr. Natesan had to play it on a low key and skip some of the campaign programmes.

Kerala voters are discerning and know that all the skeletons are not phantoms. They have turned up in large numbers to vote and the results are keenly awaited. Which of the skeletons would they recognise as real and react to them is to be seen.

A. K. Antony’s criticism is a warning to Congress-led coalition in Kerala

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Defence Minister A. K. Antony has issued a warning to the UDF government in Kerala by expressing his anguish over the situation in Kerala at a function of Indo-Russian firm BrahMos Aerospace in Thiruvananthapuram.  The Defence Minister said that though Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and P. K. Kunhalikutty have been asking for projects for the State, he was not courageous enough to locate any project in Kerala after the UDF government came to power.

Defence Minister A. K. Antony

Defence Minister A. K. Antony in his office in New Delhi

Though Antony did not say it directly, he was warning that the Congress led coalition in the State (UDF) would not be able to retain the seats it had won in the last Lok Saba Elections unless its performance improves. It is significant that his warning comes at a time when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has reshuffled his Cabinet with a view to the elections due in 2014. As the Number Two in the Union Cabinet, Antony has to see that the Congress performs well in the next elections.

The UDF had won 16 seats in the last Lok Sabha election out of 20. Every school boy knows that the Front would not be able to retain them in the next elections under the present circumstances, not to speak of winning more seats.  When he was the Chief Minister in the State, Mr. Antony had not been able to lead the Front to a victory in the Assembly elections. As Union Minister he wants to be one who has contributed to victory of the Front in the next Lok Sabha elections.  However, he is admitting that he was unable to do anything for the State because of the situation in the State. He was not getting the cooperation he wanted.

It is also notable that Mr. Antony praised the (previous) LDF government in Kerala. He knows only too well that the Congress will have to fall back on the Left too if it did not win enough seats to form a government at the Centre.  So, he is building bridges. It is also a fact the previous government had facilitated establishment of defence projects in the State.

Antony could also be concerned about a number of other issues.  There is growing discord among the ruling Front constituents. They are even making unethical bargains. The front could lose votes if Congress played to their tunes on some of the controversial positions they are taking. There is also considerable discord in the Congress. The proposed reorganisation of KPCC is getting delayed. All this should worry Mr. Antony more than anyone else. So, it is not surprising that he has fired a salvo against the UDF government, though he is unlikely to repeat that as elections come closer.  The crucial point is how far the Congress and UDF constituents in the State would heed his warning and act in larger interests.

Tailpiece:
Above all these, there is a personal factor to Mr. Antony’s criticism. Image-conscious Antony is hurt by the fact that allegations had been raised over the take over the Kerala Hitech Industries by joint venture Brahmos Aerospace and that neither Mr. Chandy nor Kunhalikutty had come to his defence. In fact, the INTUC unit in the company joined hands with the AITUC union which raised the allegations. Mr. Antony would not have voiced his concerns openly but for this factor. His remarks stemmed from personal hurt and diminishing influence in Kerala politics. (Revised and tailpiece added as post script on 17/11/2011).