Kerala appears to loom large in the Congress party’s 2024 Lok Sabha election calculus. The party’s national leadership whisked at least 25 top Congress leaders, including MPs, from Kerala to New Delhi for a pre-poll brainstorming session at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters.
It seemed not lost on the national leadership that of the 52 seats the Congress won in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 15 were from Kerala, including the high-profile Wayanad constituency bagged by Rahul Gandhi.
AICC general secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal indicated that the Congress was readying for some heavy-lifting in Kerala, and the political atmosphere was conducive to a United Democratic Front (UDF) win. However, he signalled that there was no room for complacency.
Mr. Venugopal has repeatedly emphasised the need for uniform political messaging, underscored organisational cohesion and firmly drawn the line under any factionalism that might threaten the party’s winning chances and expose its flanks to CPI(M) and BJP attacks.
Several Congress MPs had publicly expressed the wish to quit parliamentary politics with an eye on a potential legislative role in Kerala. The AICC seemed keen to avoid a fractious dispute over the matter.
It reportedly aspires to strike a winning formula by fielding a mix of incumbents and new faces by painstakingly factoring in the challenging demographics of religion, caste and age that inform electoral outcomes in Kerala.
The Congress also face several propaganda hurdles in Kerala. The CPI(M) has portrayed the party as equivocal on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) issue and campaigned that the borderline between the BJP’s “Hindu majoritarian nationalism” and the Congress’ “soft Hindutva” is imperceptibly thin.
It senses an electoral ploy in the CPI(M)‘s gambit to cast itself as the sole bulwark against the Sangh Parivar’s alleged trespasses on secularism to woo minority votes to the Left camp.
Hence, the Congress has tread carefully on the controversy relating to Speaker A.N. Shamseer’s alleged “anti-Hindu” remarks to avoid falling into the CPI(M) “trap”. It has empathised with the Nair Service Society’s (NSS) demand for a public apology from Mr. Shamseer and urged reconciliation.
The Congress also seems intent on pre-empting the BJP from exploiting the delicate issue to play spoilsport and tip the electoral scales in the CPI(M)‘s favour in the Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress also highlights Manipur violence and the Centre’s “bid to nullify personal laws” by drafting a UCC that resonates strongly among the Christians and the Muslims, who together constitute 43% of the State’s electorate.
It will use the Assembly session that commences next week as a bully pulpit to put the government on the defence on a host of issues ahead of the Assembly byelection in Puthuppally in November-December, which opposing political parties view as an arguable bellwether of Kerala’s voting behaviour.
