Rahul finds comfort in the South, Modi runs out of ideas

How will Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest an additional parliamentary seat (besides Amethi in north India’s Uttar Pradesh), namely Wayanad in south India’s Kerala, play out? It impacted the election at the local, state and national levels, and like his announcement a week earlier to guarantee the poorest Indians a minimum wage if brought to power, it has driven the election narrative further away from national security. If at February-end Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters believed that following the post-Pulwama airstrike their party would win over 300 Lok Sabha seats, that enthusiasm has fizzled in what is proving to be a lacklustre election.

On social media, there is much hostility to Rahul’s announcement. The Left is livid that Rahul has targeted Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s government in the parliamentary contest; the Right echoes Prime Minister Narendra Modi polemic that Rahul had “run away” to fight in Kerala (a phrase that doesn’t flatter India’s most literate state) after falsely accusing Hindus of terrorism (a reference to the recentlydismissed Samjhauta Express blasts case); and liberals both in Delhi and elsewhere have accused Rahul of aiming for the 2024 election rather than this one because, as in Delhi and UP, he did not stitch up an alliance against the BJP with the main local player.

The back-and-forth included claims that Rahul had deliberately chosen a “Hindu minority” seat, which in itself shows how far election rhetoric has drifted from national security. While some claim that Wayanad itself is 49.48 per cent Hindu, 28.65 per cent Muslim and 21.34 per cent Christian, they overlook how the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat includes three assembly segments from Malappuram district and one from Kozhikode district. As a result, the parliamentary seat is an estimated 56 per cent Muslim and nine per cent Christian.

With a nearly two-third minority vote, the constituency bordering Tamil Nadu and

Karnataka is considered a safe Congress seat

(the late MI Shanavas won it in 2014 despite a national Modi wave). Already the Welfare

Party of India, the political arm of the local Jamaat-e-Islami, has pledged support to the

Congress, as has a local tribal front.

This has upset the Left Democratic Front government which had been consolidating the minority vote ever since the Sabarimala temple controversy broke out following the

September 28, 2018, Supreme Court decision to lift the ban on women’s entry. The BJP played it up, targeting the LDF for breaking tradition, while the Congress displayed hypocrisy by leaving the matter to the local unit while nationally espousing equal gender rights; Vijayan was thus hoping to capture the minority vote while splitting the Hindu vote. It helped that his government has performed well in health and education: two lakh students have reportedly shifted from private schools to government schools in Kerala, and the state’s hospital infrastructure has significantly improved.

With Rahul’s arrival, however, the Congress-led United Democratic Front now hopes to win as many as 18 of the state’s 20 parliamentary seats. The UDF was going to do well anyway; before his candidature it was looking at around 12 seats, but Rahul’s candidacy may swing the election for the UDF in another six seats. One reason is that Congress governments at the Centre have had a good representation from the state. Dr Manmohan Singh’s second government had seven ministers from Kerala: AK Antony, Vayalar Ravi, Mullappally Ramachandran, KV Thomas, Shashi Tharoor, KC Venugopal and K Suresh. Modi’s government used to have O Rajagopalan but now Kerala is represented by K Alphonse, in the news recently for visiting the wrong constituency (he’s contesting the Ernakulam seat). Also, unlike other PMs Modi overshadows his Cabinet, to put it mildly. Then there’s the excitement in Kerala that Rahul Gandhi is a potential first-time-ever PM from the state.

The Left is going all out to defeat Rahul. Besides the bitter verbal attacks – a party organ called his announcement a “Pappu strike” – six Polit Bureau members will be deployed in Wayanad. With the Delhi media likely to parachute into Wayanad in bigger numbers than ever before, it will no doubt be a bonanza time for Wayanad’s tourism industry.

The Congress speaks of how Wayanad will have a “ripple effect” on other southern states, but this is overstated. In Tamil Nadu, the ruling AIADMK, which is in alliance with the BJP, faces serious trouble; the credit goes to the state opposition DMK. In Karnataka, though the Congress has reaffirmed its electoral alliance with coalition partner JD(S), on the ground there are numerous reports of infighting that can only benefit the BJP. The Congress is nowhere in Andhra Pradesh. Telengana is dominated by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

What of Modi, who surveys show remains the personally most popular politician in India? He appears to have run out of fresh ideas. His March 27 announcement about the successful test of ballistic missile interceptor (after a failed attempt on February 12) has had zero impact on election rhetoric. His speeches have degenerated into ad hominem attacks on his opponents on unapologetically communal grounds. These are hardly signs of someone expecting to win over 300 parliamentary seats.

The Congress speaks of how Wayanad will have a ‘ripple effect’ on other southern states, but this is overstated