It was not just the UDF and its strategies that helped it coast to victory. The LDF government was happily contributing ammo to the reconstituted Team UDF. The strategist in Mr Satheesan was smart to identify the fault lines in the LDF’s political arguments — there were many — and hit them hard
After sitting on a decision for 11 long days to pick a leader of the Congress legislature party in Kerala as authorised by its members, the party high command has finally cast its lot with V.D. Satheesan, the Opposition leader in the outgoing House and a seasoned politician with a record of winning six elections back-to-back without a break. Mr Satheesan will now be facing challenges that anyone in his chair will do in addition to the ones already created by the inability of the party’s central leadership to take a decision on time.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) unseated the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the CPI(M), which had in 2021 broken through the revolving door, with a massive win, bagging 102 of the 140 seats in the Assembly. The UDF was an emaciated lot after conceding defeats in two consecutive elections in 2021; and the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government looked formidable with its sterling record on the development and welfare fronts.
Mr Satheesan coined the term ‘Team UDF’ and galvanised his party and the constituents of the UDF injecting in them the confidence that they can take on the LDF. The massive victories in the Assembly by-elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were reason enough for the UDF workers to lay their trust in the leadership Mr Satheesan.
It was not just the UDF and its strategies that helped it coast to victory. The LDF government was happily contributing ammo to the reconstituted Team UDF. The strategist in Mr Satheesan was smart to identify the fault lines in the LDF’s political arguments — there were many — and hit them hard.
The losses in the Lok Sabha poll and the erosion of the Hindu vote bank had led the CPI(M) and the LDF to try tactics it had never adopted before in Kerala. They decided to propitiate leaders of the NSS and the SNDP, organisations of the powerful Nair and Ezhava communities, in order to crawl back to their old strongholds. They soft-pedalled on the hate-filled statements of the SNDP Yogam leader against the minority communities, especially Muslims. Mr Satheesan entered the scene flashing the secular card. In the end, the comrades found themselves losing the trust of the Muslims and were unable to get back their traditional vote bank.
Mr Satheesan will now find the going tough. The two senior leaders, AICC general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal and veteran leader Ramesh Chennithala who lost out in the race, have already expressed their displeasure with the party leadership for ignoring their claims. The constitution of a cabinet that balances the various permutations and combinations will itself be a challenging task.
The promises the UDF has made to the voters, including the five guarantees, will cost a bomb; the state government that just about manages its finances will have to look for new avenues of revenue generation should it want to meet them all. The efforts by a section of the communal forces to appropriate Mr Satheesan have been conspicuous, and he will have to fight off such attempts to keep the state and its people stay united. Coming are the days when the leadership of Mr Satheesan will be put to test.
