Kerala polls: LDF broadens its poll alliance to break trend and return to power
CPI(M), which contested 84 or 85 seats in the state elections from 2006 to 2016, is contesting only 75 seats, according to the EC candidate list.
While the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and Congress led United Democratic Front (UDF) have won the Kerala legislative assembly every alternate election since 1982, Tuesday’s polls are taking place in a different context. In the 2019 LS polls, the Congress alone won 68.6% of the state’s 140 assembly constituencies (ACs) if the results are disaggregated at the AC-level, which is the highest seat share won by the party in all Kerala assembly elections since 1965 and all Lok Sabha polls since 1999 (the earliest Lok Sabha election for which AC-level statistics are available with HT). The CPI(M) won just 11.4% of the ACs in 2019, the lowest AC-level seat share for the party in state polls since 1965 and LS elections since 1999. If those suggested that the UDF’s victory this time was a near certainty, then such predictions have since been upset by the LDF’s comeback in the 2020 local body polls.
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CPI(M), which contested 84 or 85 seats in the state elections from 2006 to 2016, is contesting only 75 seats, according to the EC candidate list. This is the lowest number of ACs the party has contested in Kerala since 2001. The Congress is contesting 93 ACs, the highest since 1996. This suggests that the LDF has broadened its alliance to improve its electoral prospects.
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A district level breakup of contested seats shows that the CPI(M) has given up the most seats compared to 2016 in the Ernakulam district — from 11 in 2016 to only six. Ernakulam has the second-lowest share of Hindu population among the 14 districts. The LDF has a bigger support from Hindus than among Muslims and Christians. The CPI(M) now also faces a threat from the BJP, which has taken up a share of Hindu votes. The CPI(M)’s retreat in Ernakulam could be aimed at making up for the loss of Hindu votes with Christian votes (Christians make up 38% of the population in the area) attracted by its allies. A district-level breakup for the Congress shows that it has increased the share of seats contested the most in Kottayam, which has the highest share of Christians among the state’s districts, and KEC(M) has support among Syrian Christians.