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Will this be Karunakaran's last battle?

Venu Menon in Thiruvananthapuram

Congress warhorse Kunnoth Karunakaran got off to a shaky start as he prepared for what could well be his last battle in a political career that straddled two decades. His candidature for the Lok Sabha seat in Thiruvananthapuram did not have the mandate of the party high command but became a fait accompli when he proceeded to campaign in right earnest. Arrayed against him are sitting MP K V Surendranath of the Communist Party of India and Kerala Verma of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

First impressions give Karunakaran an edge over his aging and less glamorous opponents. But to clinch the seat he will need more than his customary dynamism and panache. The pivotal vote in this 1.15 million-strong electorate belongs to the Nair and Nadar communities. The goodwill of these sections cannot be taken for granted. In the last election, the Nairs adopted a hostile stance towards the Congress and its United Democratic Front allies.

This time around, the Nairs appear to be non-committal. On the other hand, the Christian-dominant Nadars are sore with the UDF leadership for displacing A Charles who lost to Surendranath. Thus, Karunakaran has to build bridges with the two communities before he can be sanguine about a victory.

CPI veteran Surendranath is the Mr Nice in the fray. A man known as a political pacifist and an environmental activist, his triumph in the last election surprised his own partymen. Surendranath has been judicious in his utterances where his rival has emerged as a loose cannon.

Karunakaran's opposition to the candidature of fellow Congressman P C Chacko in Mukundapuram on the grounds that Chacko is a Jacobite in a predominantly Roman Catholic constituency has angered the Jacobite church and put a question mark over his secular credentials.

The hiccups in his campaign come in the backdrop of Karunakaran's waning image in Delhi. He badly needs an election victory to offset his defeat in the last poll. His current Rajya Sabha seat stood in the way of the unanimous decision on his Lok Sabha candidature, but eventually he had his way.

In the rest of the state, the mood in the Congress is upbeat following Sonia Gandhi's visit, and cautious in the Left Democratic Front. The high point for the UDF is the newfound unity between the warring factions in the Congress. A K Antony and Karunakaran have called a truce and instructed their supporters to cease hostilities and unite in the larger interest of the party. As if to illustrate his sincerity, Antony stood up for Karunakaran in the face of the high command's opposition to the veteran's candidature.

The ruling LDF is somewhat insecure on two counts: the anti-incumbency factor and the shabby performance in office. It has not honoured its election promises and does not have an effective blueprint for the industrial stagnation, unemployment and price rise that have spawned public discontent. The E K Nayanar government appears to be more pre-occupied with cracking down on its political opponents.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist is a divided party engulfed in a full-scale faction war between party secretary V S Achuthanandan and the Centre for Indian Trade Union lobby. The constituents of the Left front -- the CPI, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Kerala Congress (Joseph) and Janata Dal -- are not particularly happy with the treatment meted out to them by the Marxists.

The BJP is the dark horse in this election. It does not have a winning capability but it can play a spoiler role for the major contenders. The party polled between 4 and 7 per cent of the total vote in the last assembly election and hopes to raise that to 7 per cent. The BJP is keen to test its real strength in the coming poll.

Kerala Varma, who cornered over 100,000 votes in the last Lok Sabha election, aims to tap the uppercaste, temple-going segment of the Hindu community. The party will find a handy weapon in the LDF government's recent bid to take over the temple administration in the state through the contentious Devaswom Bill.

The key constituencies where the outcome will be closely watched include Thrissur where Karunakaran's son Muraleedharan contests in place of his father, and Allapuzha where the CPI-M's crop destruction campaign was launched some months ago in protest against the conversion of paddy fields into rubber estates and housing colonies. The worst-hit by the militant movement were a sizeable section of middle class farmers who are sore with the CPI-M.

The LDF is falling back on programmes like the People's Plan, an effort in decentralised planning at the panchayat level, which created a stir in the rural areas. The Congress leaders like to dismiss it as a partisan exercise hamstrung by the inadequate allocation of funds by the state government. The Nayanar government is also projecting its populist schemes such as the distribution of rice to children during festivals, which is a leaf taken from M G Ramachandran's book.

The Congress and its allies are hoping that Sonia Gandhi will pull in the votes for them. She has conclusively demonstrated her charisma with the average Congress worker, judging by the enthusiastic response to her recent visit to Kochi. Whether her appeal extends to the wider public is open to question since the Kerala electorate is known to vote with its head rather than heart.

Given the fact that victory margins are narrow and the difference between two coalition rivals is little over 100,000 votes, every little factor counts. It is not clear to what extent national trends will impinge on the state. But perceptions about the performance of the United Front, the presence of Sonia Gandhi and the groundswell of support for the BJP are factors that are likely to find an echo in Kerala.

Elections '98

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