The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) seems poised to repeat the hugely rewarding 2022 Thrikkakara Assembly byelection tack in Puthuppally, where the death of the incumbent legislator and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has left the Assembly seat vacant.
Congress struck gold in the Thrikkakara bypoll last year by fielding Uma Thomas, wife of P.T. Thomas, who died in harness like Chandy. She bagged nearly 54% of the total votes polled.
The matrix of kinship politics that proved fruitful in Thrikkakara could influence Congress’s candidate selection in Puthuppally, delivering Chandy Oommen a high fighting chance of clinching his father’s mantle.
KPCC stance
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran said Congress would empathetically consider fielding a candidate from the Chandy family. However, it was too early in the day to take a call on the matter.
Congress views the bypoll as pivotal. Puthuppally was a United Democratic Front (UDF) bastion under Chandy’s stewardship for 53 years. The party could ill-afford to lose it. In contrast, even a marginal increase in vote share would buoy the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) spirits.
Congress also casts the bypoll as a litmus test of the Pinarayi Vijayan government’s popularity and an arguable bellwether of Kerala’s voting behaviour ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
CPI(M)‘s likely choice
The chorus for Mr. Oommen’s candidature seems to get stronger by the day in the party. Congress leader Cherian Philip said CPI(M) had secretly settled on fielding Jake C. Thomas, a young leader in Puthuppally. The gambit strengthened the case for Mr. Oommen’s candidature, he said.
Congress leaders also seemed wary that Mr. Thomas had whittled Chandy’s victory margin by a third in the 2021 Assembly elections. It appeared not lost on them that Mr. Oommen and Mr. Thomas belonged to the opposing Orthodox and Jacobite factions, respectively.
Playing spoilsport?
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), though a relatively minor player in Puthuppally, had bagged almost 12% of the total votes polled in 2021 and could play spoilsport for either of the fronts.
Hence, it might be incumbent on the hopefuls to take a page out of Chandy’s political playbook and forge an aura of intimacy with voters by reaching out across religious, social and bitter factional divides to savour the joy of victory in Puthuppally. The bypoll seems destined to put dynastic politics to the test in Kerala yet again.
