Festival of democracy

So. The election season is over. UDF had a landslide victory crossing the appealing 100 seat mark. LDF has hit the lowest point in recent history. NDA reopened their account improving seat share. I was waiting for an accurate vote share to be released. Because our parliamentary system follows the First Past Post System where only one among the candidates is chosen. So even if people vote for other candidates their votes don't make changes if the winning candidate has got a majority. But in the Proportional representation system candidates are elected based on the proportionality of votes ( each party gets search proportional to their vote share). Our constituent assembly ( body responsible to make constitution) adopted the former mainly due to the easiness of the system to understand, for the masses. Let us take each front one by one and try to understand what all things batted for them. 

UDF surpassed my expectations. Before voting my expectation was a UDF comeback with 80-85 seats. But on voting day what I saw was long queues and swarms of voters rushing to polling booths. Even though the surge in voting percentage reflected the SIR impact as experts rightly identified a message was implied in those long queues. So that made me believe in a better UDF performance, something around 90. But surpassing all predictions UDF crossed the century limit. The first reason for such a victory would be of course the huge anti incumbency. The antsy people of Kerala were waiting to get rid of the left government. What amplified that anti incumbency was the attitude of CPIM and narcissist mentality. Pinarayi Vijayan remains as a party apparatchik  but no longer has the charisma he had during the initial years of chief ministership. UDF was able to unleash their best with minimal squabbles regarding seat allocation and candidature. Thanks to their main allies like Muslim League and Kerala Congress (Joseph) for remaining rock solid and cleverly understanding the importance of the fight. It would be injustice to leave sans mentioning VD Satheeshan. VD's contribution cannot be treated as a knee jerk reaction. Realising the structural deficiency of his party he tried to build a broader social platform which aligns with the original INC  motto, a platform where anyone against the regime can join. Finally the greatest tool of keralites, the political ego to vote against the government returned after a hiatus. 

Around 2.5 years ago while I was having a convo with my cousin I asked him how is Pinarayi 2.0. What he replied is the key takeaway for party from this election result. His reply was "sadharanakare ketilelum kozhapamillada, swantham partykaare enkilum kelkende". The performance of UDF in Ambalappuzha, Payyanur, Thaliparamb and Kottarakkara verifies that. When the party detached from the cadres, consequently the connection with commons got cut off. The meticulously crafted initiatives like Nava Kerala Sadas, Ayyappa Sammelanam, chain of interviews and colossal hoardings every 500m turned into Frankenstein projects. However this doesn't mean the era of left is over in Kerala. The left remains as the most credible  platform for the poor, oppressed and marginalized across the globe. They have all tools in their armoury to revamp the system better than anyone else. History proves that.

Ever since their inception BJP is contesting elections in Kerala. Until the 2014 Modi wave their vote share remained well below 10%. But even after the wave and an increase in vote share to 14-16% Kerala legislative assembly functioned largely without any BJP member (2016, O Rajagopal exception). This strange phenomenon was the result of a significant minority population, demography and Left-Right Political system of the state. However this election has rewritten history. Even when the vote share didn't had substantial changes seat share rose to 3. Nemom and Kazhakootam were recognized as potential seats but Chaathanoor was a silent killer. A few days before the result only I came to the know about the constituency and BJP's chances to win there. They also aced in improving vote share in some predicted seats like Thiruvalla, Pala, Kasargod and came second in almost 8 seats. Apart from these successes they faced huge setbacks in their other A classified seats. Manjeswaram and Palakkad are two most prominent among them . The failure of allies like 20-20 to garner expected votes reflects the lacuna inside the alliance. Plus there are voices rising to reconsider the Christian outreach as it hadn't borne expected fruits.

Nb: Views are personal. Facts are recollected from memory. Sorry for errors. Open for criticism. Thank you.