On Saturday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan launched an electioneering blitz, hitting the campaign trail for a 24-day whirlwind tour of Kerala’s 20 Lok Sabha constituencies.
The third and final leg of Mr. Vijayan’s campaign, which will conclude three days before the polls on April 23, aims at expanding the broad coalition of forces that powered the LDF to victory for a second consecutive term in the 2021 Assembly elections.
The LDF has calibrated the campaign to eclipse the perceived disadvantages of incumbency by casting the Lok Sabha polls as a pivotal referendum on “preserving India’s secular democracy” and little else.
Issues highlighted
The LDF calculates that Mr. Vijayan’s penultimate campaign push might crystallise the “palpable” public disquiet about the ethnic violence in Manipur, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, National Citizenship Register, triple talaq, and the Uniform Civil Code into votes for the ruling front.
The LDF is also desperate to relegate the perceived disaffection with delay in the disbursal of social welfare pensions, human-wildlife conflicts, potholed roads, and other provincial issues to the backburner.
Hence, the ruling front has moved to frame the elections as a choice between secular democracy and the Sangh Parivar brand of “Hindu majoritarian fascism”, which “seeks to relegate minorities, backward classes and Dalits as second-class citizens.”
The LDF calculates that the electorate’s “overwhelmingly secular nature” and the State’s sizeable minorities, an estimated 44% of the population as per the 2011 census and divided politically, give it a robust fighting chance in this Lok Sabha election, compared to the 2019 polls.
The LDF also aspires to build on the momentum created by Mr. Vijayan’s anti-CAA rallies and the State Cabinet’s public outreach and grievance redressal programme, NavaKerala Sadas.
‘Vindictive notices’
It supposes that the Enforcement Directorate’s allegedly vindictive notices against CPI(M) leaders and their family members might generate voter sympathy. The summons might also arguably serve as the backbone of the ruling front’s case that the BJP had subverted the Central agencies, including the Income Tax department, to target political rivals and their families.
Mr. Vijayan would attend at least three public rallies in each parliamentary constituency and review campaign effectiveness.