Kerala does not have the
tradition of re-electing a government.
So yesterday’s poll results would not have surprised anybody. Moreover, the UDF government was steeped in
corruption charges.
Kerala Results in a nutshell |
Yet the Pala constituency
re-elected K. M. Mani who faced serious allegations related to the bar
scam. The people of Pala are neither
ignorant politically nor blind in their allegiance to Mr Mani. Mani has done much for the people of his
constituency. He has intimate
relationships with the Catholic church which is a strong force in Pala. People benefit one way or another if Mani is
in power. That is the secret of Mani’s
success. It has nothing to do with any
ideology.
P. C. George who rebelled
furiously against Mani’s corruption and became an enemy of both the UDF and the
LDF because of his undiplomatic forthrightness and bravado won as an
independent candidate from Poonjar, Mani’s neighbouring constituency. George’s victory indicates that what people
really care for is not the Party but the Person. George is a person with strong mass support
because he is a man of the people.
Nobody who approaches him with a grievance will leave his office disappointed.
UDF’s P. J. Joseph won
with the largest margin (45,587 votes) from Thodupuzha, a town which has
witnessed much development because of him.
His victory shows again that even the people of Kerala will re-elect you
if you do something worthwhile for them.
Eldhose Kunnapilly of UDF makes
his debut entry to the Kerala Assembly because he has made a mark as a social
worker while he served his term as the District Panchayat President. People voted for service.
In short, it is not really
the party that matters in Kerala; it is what the leader does for the
people.
Jayalalithaa’s victory in Kerala’s
neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu also illustrates the same principle. Amma is certainly not above taint. Yet she won comfortably because she had
extended a lot of support to the poor people in various ways some of which may
be scoffed at by the affluent as cheap gimmicks or mere populism. For the starving man, a cheap meal at a
low-cost canteen is as good as god. Amma
became a goddess in the state which still has a sizeable section of the
population grappling with poverty.
Nationwide, the BJP is
buoyant because of its landslide victory in Assam, “opening its account” in
Kerala, and, above all, because of the rout of Congress everywhere. The Congress deserves its present fate
because it had lost touch with people. It’s
not enough to visit the poor in their huts and have tea with them, as Rahul
Gandhi did for some time. People must
benefit in concrete terms. As pointed
out above, those leaders who really did something concrete for the people won
in Kerala and such people can win anywhere.
So the lesson that Congress has to learn is clear.
Source: The Hindu The Left atop a 'Right' building |
The NDA fared miserably in
Kerala whatever the statistics may say.
Vellapally Natesan, whom the BJP espoused in the state, is a crook and
swindler who played the most cynical communal card by forming a political party
for the Dalits whom he had only exploited throughout his political career. Even the helicopter given him by the BJP for
the election campaign could not take him to any height whatever. His party did not win even a single
seat. Cynical communalism has no place
in Kerala yet though clandestine communalism triumphs! Mr Modi and his cohorts can learn some
subtlety from Kerala.
The BJP won one seat
through O. Rajagopal who made it finally after losing 15 times in elections to the Assembly
as well as the Parliament! His tenacity and
grit must be admired, if nothing else.
If the secular parties in Kerala really
deliver what they are supposed to, then a party like the BJP will not fare any
better than Vellapally’s BDJS in Kerala.
I hope Pinarayi Vijayan will become the Chief Minister and the politics
in the state will undergo a radical change.
I hope the party workers of Pinarayi will allow him to do his job.
Post Script
The Cannes Film Festival
is showing a number of movies which underscore the revenge of the poor. Andrea Arnold’s American Honey features people who earn their living by selling
magazine subscriptions but augment that meagre income by robbing jewellery from
the affluent. Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake shows the plight of a disabled
man who lets out his fury by spraying paint on a job centre with onlookers
applauding him. Joe who lost his farm
because he followed the advice of some financial expert on the TV takes revenge
by holding the expert hostage in his own studio in the movie, Money Monster. The French farce, Ma Loute, goes to the extent of featuring characters who murder and
eat the rich.
When the richest one
percent owns more than the bottom 90 (in the USA, for example), it is time for
revolutionary changes. Revolutions
usually started with literature. Now it
can start at the Cannes too.
Elections! A topic that makes people go crazy despite being 'educated'. And I really don't understand the logic of creating problems, after the results are out, as happened in Kannur yesterday!
ReplyDeleteKannur is a politically sensitive area because of the Parties involved: both CPM and BJP consider their parties as religions and hence sentiments get heated up quickly. And these party workers are really not "educated".
DeleteGood coverage
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Delete