February 6: North Kerala's electoral preferences have remained generally balanced in the past, except for a few upsets. It is a vast area extending from the northern tip of Kasargod, a veritable multi-lingual and multi-cultural showcase, to the rice bowl of Palakkad, bordering Tamil Nadu in the east.Despite the variegated geographical, cultural and linguistic influences in these parts, the politics here has been on the state's general pattern of the traditional two-camp seesaw between the United Democratic Front and the Left Democratic Front. The Bharatiya Janata Party plays a major part including that of vote-splitter often tilting the balance between the two coalitions.
And, as three weeks of intensive campaigning remain, preparations are in top gear with parties and fronts busy organising workers' meetings and conventions to step up the election tempo to water the ground for the weekend when all the candidates start their campaign tours.
Meanwhile, visible concerns that have often exercised thevoters' minds are surfacing. For minorities the frequently debated issues of secularism and their future in an India that is turning more and more saffron in its political preferences. This remains the primary issue even today, though their faith in the United Front to which most of the minorities were looking up to in the 1996 election, has shaken to a large extent this time.
The feeling in the minority circles and parties like the Muslim League, the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Indian National League and many of the Muslim religious organisations is that the United Front may fail to remain united in its opposition to the fascist forces. They feel many of those UF leaders who now swear by secularism could walk to the side of the BJP given a chance to capture power.
``We cannot trust many of these persons who now talk loudly about secularism,'' says one Muslim intellectual.
In the last elections the Jamaat-e-Islami and most of the other splinter Muslim groups had supported the LDF candidates giving good marginsto the front's leaders like M P Veerendrakumar.
The Jamaat has yet to declare its line, but parties like the INL have put up their own candidates in many of the northern constituencies. Some of them may be withdrawn as the campaign advances and they are likely to switch their loyalties to the Cong-led front.
The BJP manifesto came as a shock to those sections who were hoping the party would soften its stance on the contentious issues. Many minority organisations here have already come out sharply criticising the manifesto.
On the national scene the apparent UF dissensions in terms of seat sharing especially in UP is causing concern to UF faithfuls in the region. Sonia Gandhi is scheduled to visit some parts of north Kerala in the coming days and her visit would definitely change the scene with Congress leaders and workers in the state have perked up and there is a growing sense of unity in the ranks. This has engendered the feeling in parties like the Muslim League that Congress is again a unitedforce.
The CPM, which has a very strong power base in this region, will have to be on the defensive. The LDF Government's performance, except in the implementation of the People's Council for the Ninth Plan (PCNP) in rural areas, is not very rosy. Many Panchayats which have an excellent track record in the PCNP here belong to parties like the Muslim League. The series of political murders in places like Valayam, with Chief Minister E K Nayanar holding the Police portfolio, could prove costly for them.
The BJP is confident of a significant breakthrough in the elections, the party's gen secy S Pillai asserts. He points to a successful convention they had organised here recently in which many from the minority sects including Christians and Muslims had joined the party at the meet.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
