The Wayanad bypoll has been necessitated after Rahul Gandhi vacated the seat to retain Rae Bareli constituency. Palakkad and Wayanad Assembly constituencies were vacated by Shafi Parambil of the Congress and K. Radhakrishnan of the CPI(M ) who won the Lok Sabha elections from Vadakara and Alathur respectively.

While Priyanka Gandhi has been named the Congress candidate for Wayanad, Youth Congress state president Rahul Mangoottathil and Remya Haridas, who lost the Lok Sabha election from Alathur, are the party candidates for Palakkad and Chelakkara.

Congress, which has won Palakkad three times back to back, is facing an uphill task this time around mainly because of an internal revolt against the candidature of Rahul much against the wishes of the Palakkad District Congress Committee(DCC) and local party leaders and activists. The DCC wanted senior Congress leader K. Muralidharan to contest from Palakkad. Interestingly, the first list did not contain the name of Rahul at all! Murali was not considered as he is not in the good books of Leader of the Opposition in Kerala V D Satheesan. It was, in a way, a conspiracy by Shafi and Satheesan to impose Rahul on Palakkad.

The unilateral action triggered a big revolt in Palakkad, which climaxed in the resignation of Congress State digital media cell convener P. Sarin and his joining the CPI(M). The decision has also led to the exit of a few more Congress leaders. In a deft move, the CPI(M) has named Sarin as the LDF-backed Independent candidate from the constituency. It was a good move as Sarin would bag not only the CPI(M) votes but also take away a big slice of the disgruntled Congress votes. The LDF camp is exuding optimism that in this election, the party which had been ending up third in the last three elections, will emerge the winner in view of the changed political situation.

As for the BJP, which fancied its chances quite high, has suffered a rude jolt with the disclosure by the former office secretary of the party’s Thrissur unit Tirur Satish that as many as six bags of supposedly electoral tools actually contained black money running into six crores! The funds were meant to be spent for the 2021 assembly elections in the State. After leaving part of the money at the Thrissur BJP office, the vehicle in which the remainder of the money – around three crore - was being taken to Alappuzha, was waylaid and the amount looted – in a stage-managed encounter by the BJP itself – near Kodakara , close to Thrissur!

The incident was probed by the Kerala Police Crime Branch, which submitted its report to the Enforcement Directorate for further action. But the ED, which is active only in cases involving the Opposition parties, sat tight on the report, refusing to take any action. The startling disclosure by Satish has put the BJP in a tight spot. The incident dashed the BJP’s hopes of victory from Palakkad.

The Palakkad BJP unit was badly divided even before this incident came to light. A section of the local BJP led by senior leader Sobha Surendran was up in arms against the candidature of party’s state general secretary C. Krishnakumar. The Sobha camp was angry as she was denied ticket from Palakkad. Had she been made the BJP candidate, the BJP had an outside chance of winning the seat. But that is not to be as the Satish disclosure has spoiled the BJP’s chances of scoring an upset victory from Palakkad. No wonder the BJP leaders are sporting a hangdog look these days. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, it can safely be said that the BJP is in a blue mood! Incidentally, the BJP has been runner-up in Palakkad since 2016, when Sobha Surendran garnered 29.08 % votes. Metroman E Sreedharan who was the BJP candidate in 2021 increased the vote share to 35.34. He lost to Shafi Parambil of the Congress only by a slender margin of over 3,500 votes.

In Chelakkara, the CPI((M) candidate UR Pradeep is sitting pretty. A popular face in the constituency, Pradeep was elected to the Assembly from Chelakkara in 2016, succeeding K. Radhakrishnan, who had been representing the seat since 1996. Radhakrishnan winning the LS poll necessitated the Chelakkara bypoll. The Congress is in bad shape in this seat as well. The reason: party candidate Remya Haridas is an outsider. Upset over her candidature, a Congress rebel is in the fray. To add insult to injury, PV Anvar, MLA, who formed a social organization named Democratic Movement of Kerala (DMK) after leaving the LDF, has decided not to support the Congress nominee in Chelakkara! That has added to the woes of the Congress in the seat. In other words, Chelakkara is set to remain an LDF seat.

Meanwhile, Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency is set to witness a triangular contest. While Congress’s national secretary Priyanka Gandhi – it is her electoral debut - is the party candidate, the CPI has fielded veteran party leader Sathyan Mokeri as the LDF candidate. The BJP has put up a new face Navya Haridas as its candidate. Navya is a political lightweight who is seen as the youth face of the BJP in the Malabar region. She is a two-time BJP representative in the Kozhikode Corporation.

The Congress is a picture of confidence. The party leaders say the only point of interest is the extent of Priyanka’s victory margin. Significantly, Rahul Gandhi who won from Wayanad in the last general election, saw his vote share being reduced in a big way from the 64. 94% in 2019 to 59.69%. As against this, CPI’s Annie Raja increased her vote share by 0.8 % while BJP’s K. Surendran who is the party’s Kerala unit chief, saw his vote share going up.

Congress thinks it will be a cakewalk for Priyanaka. However, the ground reality is different. The CPI has fielded senior party leader Sathyan Mokeri this time. And Sathyan is no pushover. He scared the daylights out of the Congress candidate MI Shanavas in an earlier election from Wayanad by reducing the latter’s victory margin from over one lakh to a mere 20,000!

Sathyan’s impeccable credentials are his USP. He is immensely popular in Wayanad, having championed the causes of farmers. An added plus point is his vast legislative experience. Sathyan had represented the Nadapuram assembly seat for three terms from 1987 to 2001. He was an All India Kisan Sabha State Committee member and vice-president. The LDF has pulled out all the stops to ensure Mokeri’s victory. He has launched a well-organised campaign, which is evoking enthusiastic response.

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) has managed to thwart the combined Opposition attempt to paint the Palakkad and Chelakkara bypolls as a barometer of the “growing public disaffection” with the Pinarayi Vijayan Government. It has also succeeded in moulding the poll battle as a political struggle against the “Congress-supported” rising majority and minority communalism in Kerala. The LDF’s strategy has countered the opposition’s effort to cash in on the controversy involving CPI(M) leader PP Divya and the allegations made by Independent MLA P V Anvar against the Chief Minister. The LDF has hit the UDF at its vulnerable spot by exposing the Congress’s dangerous rightward shift in the State and its readiness to collude with communal forces on either side of the religious spectrum for electoral gains.

The LDF has also focused on the Congress’s shocking silence on the Modi Government’s attempt to cripple Kerala financially, denying mandatory aid to Wayanad landslide victims.

The three by-elections will be held on November 13 and the counting will take place on November 23. (IPA Service)