Sniping, muckraking, and the Žnal pitch to voters mark silence period
As the countdown clock portentously wound down to the Lok Sabha elections on Friday, the opposing alliances in Kerala spent the penultimate day on Thursday sniping at each other, indulging in electoral agenda-setting muckraking, and making their nal pitches to voters.
The silent period was anything but quiet. Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K. Sudhakaran ignited the political reworks by accusing Left Democratic Front (LDF) convener E.P. Jayarajan of plotting to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and backtracking at the last moment. Mr. Jayarajan denied the charge and said Mr. Sudhakaran had “lost his mind.”
Freebies to voters
Other controversies also red up the election-eve narrative. The LDF and the Opposition accused the BJP of attempting to woo voters in Wayanad by distributing provision kits. The BJP has denied the charge. Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan took issue with Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena’s tour to allegedly “sway Church leaders to the BJP’s cause.” He petitioned the Election Commission.
Apprehensions about last-minute shifts in voting behaviour also niggled at the minds of candidates. The Congress and the BJP raised the bogey of CPI(M) violence to chill voters, eliciting a sharp denial from the LDF.
With the BJP in the reckoning as a third force and deeply polarising issues at stake, the electoral contest could narrow to a dazzlingly close three-cornered race in a few ercely contested constituencies. The BJP repeatedly raised the spectre of tactical crossvoting by LDF and UDF workers to hinder its chances in the State.
The opposing campaigns mobilised supporters to hit neighbourhoods and knock on doors, an arguably persuasive political gambit during the silence period. Candidates popped in and out of the headquarters of social organisations in a last-minute bid to muster support.