It can be understood now why the Congress MP from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, Shashi Tharoor, has been so understanding of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governance approach. He seems to have been feeling the vibes among his constituency’s voters, who have given the NDA the most seats in Thiruvananthapuram’s mayoral polls. This is in light of the fact that it is the BJP that has been losing the Lok Sabha seat by narrow margins, pushing the LDF into third place in the past couple of elections. Tharoor, by cosying up to the BJP, is probably hoping that in the next elections he can be seen more positively by an electorate that is turning increasingly saffron.
Indeed, the local body elections in Kerala have thrown up interesting trends. There is clear anti-incumbency against the ruling LDF, with traditional rival, the Congress led UDF making significant gains. But the rise of the BJP across the board from the rural to the urban areas is likely to throw a spanner in the works, leading to unpredictable results. Kerala has for long been considered a ‘progressive’ state that has had deep communist roots from the earliest decades after Independence. Its excellent performance on various social and economic parameters is attributed to the communists’ focus on education. The UDF was considered a similarly ‘secular’ force with a strong following in certain sections of society. The gradual rise of the BJP, therefore, must be perplexing for proponents of the traditional politics and an eye-opener for those who believe the southern states do not offer fertile ground for the BJP ideology. This thinking deliberately has overlooked the BJP’s rise in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, even Tamil Nadu. Such an approach cannot take for granted that the purported Hindi-Hindu ideology of the BJP puts off the southern voters. It is more complex than that and the rise in the numbers of local leaders who can put into context the party’s ideology is indicative of that.
The trend in Kerala comes as a reprieve from the tough times the Congress is currently going through overall. However, it will have to tread carefully and consider carefully who the BJP’s rise will impact more. If it wants the positive trend to continue, it should follow the instincts of its local leaders, including Shashi Tharoor, rather than rush to impose diktats from Delhi. It would be folly to ignore the signs emerging from the local body polls.
