Ground Report From Palakkad: Where BJP Is In With A Chance In The Bypoll

A solitary egret flies low and lazy past a giant billboard promoting the electoral virtues of the Congress candidate for Palakkad assembly constituency. Framing the billboard as a majestic backdrop, the vast rock faces soar near-vertically from the plains, their scraggy peaks lost to the clouds.

For aeons, Palakkad has stood in a broad gap between the Western Ghats and the Cardamom Hills as the gateway to Kerala, rich in culture, history, and art. But this year, in the stormy season of a second monsoon, an equally furious contest is on in town, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gives its all to finally, finally, make Palakkad their political gateway into the state.

The field is quite evenly spread:  Rahul Mamkootathil, a youth leader of the Congress, versus, P Sarin, a Congressman who defected recently to the Left after he was denied a ticket for Palakkad, and C Krishnakumar, a BJP veteran.

As a table below shows, the BJP’s vote share has risen consistently through the past decade, pushing the Left to third place. Metroman E Sreedharan lost to Shafi Parambil of the Congress in 2021 by just 3,859 votes.

But things are different in 2024.

Shafi Parambil has left Palakkad and gone to the Lok Sabha from Vadakara seat in north Kerala (hence the byelection), the Congress has had to parachute in a Rahul from Travancore in the south, and the Left, left without a candidate, had to be content with an out-of-town import from the Congress in Sarin.

So much so that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has been camped in town for the past two days. This is a bit much for a ‘mere’ byelection, and smacks of desperation. Even with that sort of firepower deployed, the Left candidate’s presence on the ground is thin.

In contrast, the Congress campaign office is buzzing with activity, and their man can be spotted around town canvassing door to door. But his rhetoric is trite and staid – when this writer asked him about a possible shift of votes from the Left to his side, in a heavily Muslim area, all Rahul Mamkootathil could manage was that old bromide about being a resolute voice for secular forces.

The BJP is in with a chance and Team Palakkad knows it. The campaign headquarters is the district party office, a new, modern building wedged between a repair shop, a tiny temple, and a path lab in the old, run-down quarter of Sultanpet. The contrast is stark.

The lobby is full of party workers. State party president K Surendran is holding a press conference in a large, well-appointed hall with state-of-the-art communications. A flock of women walk in wearily from the sweltering heat to report their numbers of confirmed votes in their booths, to a swarthy, hirsute, barrel-chested senior sporting a frown.

A dour lady says “A hundred confirmed”. The senior grunts. A young girl hesitates and says “Five votes” in a disconsolate tone. The senior shakes his head: “No. Not good enough. Go back there after lunch”.

Suvarnaprasad, state media convener of the BJP has been camped in Palakkad for a month. He says that the BJP has the highest chances of victory; the game hinges on how around 7,000 votes move between the three contestants.

Shafi Parambil’s shift to the Lok Sabha means that a good number of Congress votes are now up for grabs, since he was popular, and his replacement is both less-well known, and not a local.

The Waqf issue in Munambam (covered here) has rattled the small, but electorally-decisive, Christian population in town, who have traditionally voted for the Congress. That, combined with the BJP’s sustained, intensive Christian outreach programme, and Krishnakumar’s personal appeal, means that the BJP now expects at least half of the 6,000-odd Christian votes to bless the lotus.

That is a significant number, not least because a Christian vote for the BJP is one less vote for the Congress.

Instructions are swiftly issued, the problem is resolved, and the senior concludes the matter with some sage advice to the unfortunate other end of the line: “If you have not passed first grade, I suggest that you do so before showing your face to me again”.

Everyone chuckles! And that is the mood: busy as hell, motivated, but relaxed, cutting jokes, ribbing one another, and enjoying the misfortune of incompetent colleagues with unabashed, even gleeful, schadenfreude. In effect, the place has the look and feel of a well-oiled team which has enjoyed working as one for a good while. They know their job, and it shows.

In the evening, the women take out a medium-sized rally through the centre of town. All the bigwigs are there, including Sobha Surendran. But the strangest sight has to be a small, highly enthusiastic crowd of men holding up posters of Chirag Paswan; it is the district committee of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas), the LJP (R). They have brought their drums, their attitude, their saffron BJP t-shirts, and their booming voices. “Victory is sure”, they roar, as the women march past, all dressed in traditional off-white Kerala sarees.

While the campaign is progressing very well, a genuine concern for the BJP is a redux of 2021, when roughly 5,000 Communist supporters cross-voted for the Congress to help Shafi Parambil beat E Sreedharan by less than 4,000 votes. Can it happen again?

KM Haridas, Palakkad district president of the BJP, says that the chances are low. The reason is that the Left vote is already down to 25 per cent; any further decline and they would cease to exist in the constituency for all practical purposes. “Why would they want to commit suicide?”, he asks pointedly.

Haridas is right, and the proof of the pudding is Pinarayi Vijayan’s presence in town. If the Left goes below 20 per cent, then it runs the risk of losing its deposit, creating a steep downward spiral in the region, and aggravating the anti-incumbency it already faces.

Already, the knives are out for Pinarayi Vijayan, for the coalition’s deplorable showing in the June 2024 general elections, with senior Marxist EP Jayarajan going to town in an autobiography of just how bad governance under this cabinet has been.

Now, on top of that, if the Left gets squeezed any further, it would be just the trigger the BJP has been seeking, to position themselves as a credible replacement for the Left. Worse, in the past two assembly elections, C Krishnakumar has already pushed the Congress to third place in adjoining Malampuzha assembly constituency, so if the Left comes a miserable third in Palakkad, one can expect an exodus of votes to the BJP in the next elections there.

Consequently, with the Left expected to hold on to most of what it got in 2021, the very real woes of going in with a candidate only recently imported from the Congress, the inexplicable decision of having him contest as an independent rather than on a CPI(M) ticket, the BJP toiling night and day to increase the turnout of their committed voters, and the high chance of crucial Christian votes shifting from the Congress to the BJP, it is game on in Palakkad.

And what of the BJP candidate? Krishnakumar knows that he and his team are well and truly primed to secure a historic win in Palakkad; one which will reverberate across the state. An inflection point is at hand, and as things stand with a solitary day of hectic canvassing left, our ground report indicates that the party with the best chances of winning is the BJP.