Within six months of the Lok Sabha elections, Kerala has, once again, been thrust into a high-voltage political campaign for the by-elections being held on November 11 for three seats. Among them, the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat is drawing significant attention due to the historic electoral debut of the Congress leader, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The by-election follows the resignation of her brother, Rahul Gandhi, from Wayanad and his retention of Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh after contesting and winning both seats in the Lok Sabha polls. The other two seats — Palakkad and Chelakkara assembly constituencies — are also up for grabs after their sitting members resigned to contest in the Lok Sabha elections. They will be held alongside the by-elections for 46 other assembly seats and one more Lok Sabha constituency across 14 states on November 11 and 20.
The Wayanad result seems almost to be a foregone conclusion. In the previous two elections, Rahul Gandhi won this United Democratic Front stronghold by massive margins. This time, the election comes just four months after the district, nestled in the Western Ghats, experienced one of Kerala’s deadliest natural disasters. Devastating landslides induced by heavy rains in the early hours of July 30 claimed over 420 lives, with more than 100 still missing. Many villages have been wiped out. The disaster’s potential impact on the election remains uncertain. Still, thousands joined Priyanka and Rahul on their massive roadshow at Kalpetta, the district headquarters, when they arrived to file her nomination on October 23. The Congress claims that Priyanka’s majority will cross five lakh.
In May, Rahul Gandhi won Wayanad by over 3.64 lakh votes — the largest margin in the state — but his vote share fell to 59.69%, down from 64.94% in 2019. While the Communist Party of India’s Annie Raja and the National Democratic Alliance’s Thushar Vellappally gained votes in the previous election, the Indian Union Muslim League, the second largest UDF constituent, still commands substantial support in the constituency, which consists of 49.48% Hindus, 28.65% Muslims and 21.34% Christians according to the 2011 Census.
The Left Democratic Front’s campaign thrust is on Rahul’s ‘betrayal’ of the people of Wayanad by resigning from the seat. “How do we know if Priyanka also won’t desert Wayanad after we elect her?” asked Sathyan Mokeri, CPI’s candidate for the by-election. Mokeri (71), a CPI state executive member, secured the LDF’s best performance in 2014 when he restricted the Congress’s majority to 20,870 votes. The CPI state secretary, Binoy Viswam, says that Rahul and Priyanka, as the INDIA block’s top leaders, committed a grave political mistake by coming all the way to Wayanad to fight against an alliance partner even when they say that the BJP is their main enemy.
Despite being the favourites, the Gandhi family has left no stone unturned for the by-election. Sonia Gandhi, who had never visited Wayanad during Rahul’s two campaigns, accompanied Priyanka when she arrived with her husband, Robert Vadra, and children to file the nomination.
The BJP candidate is Navya Haridas (39), relatively lesser-known, though she is the state general-secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Mahila Morcha and a two-time councillor of the Kozhikode Municipal Corporation. Haridas joined politics in 2015; earlier, she used to work as a software engineer at HSBC. In May, the BJP state president, K. Surendran, secured the party’s highest-ever vote share in Wayanad, at 13%, coming third behind the CPI’s Raja (26.09%).
The most intense battle, though, is in the Palakkad assembly seat, which witnesses a triangular contest. Although a traditional Congress stronghold, it was among the seven constituencies where the BJP came second in the last two assembly elections. In 2021, the BJP’s star candidate, the technocrat, E. Sreedharan aka the ‘Metro Man’, lost only by 3,859 votes to Congress’s Shafi Parambil, a three-time winner. The BJP has also been ruling the Palakkad Municipality for years, and the Palakkad Lok Sabha constituency was among the six seats where the NDA scored over 24% votes in the May election.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also holds significant sway in the district known as Kerala’s rice bowl, although it was relegated to third place on the last two occasions. In a surprising twist, the LDF has gained momentum this time after a high-profile defection from the Congress. P. Sarin, the former digital media chief of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee and a former civil servant, revolted against the party. After being expelled from the Congress, Sarin was picked up by the CPI(M) and fielded as an LDF-backed independent. The UDF has fielded a debutant, Rahul Mamkoottathil, the state Youth Congress president, while C. Krishna Kumar, the state general-secretary of the BJP, fights for the saffron party.
A good performance in Palakkad is essential for the BJP, which has no presence in the state’s 140-member legislature since it lost its lone seat (Nemom) in 2021. It is, however, buoyed by its unprecedented show in May’s Lok Sabha polls, which saw the actor-politician, Suresh Gopi, securing for the BJP its first-ever Lok Sabha seat (Thrissur). The party also increased its total vote share in the state to 19.21%, besides coming first in 11 assembly segments. However, more than any serious political issue, the hottest debate in Palakkad’s by-election campaign is over allegations of clandestine deals thrown by all three political fronts at one another. While the UDF and the LDF accuse each other of being hand-in-glove with the BJP, the saffron party charges the other two to be secret bedfellows.
Chelakkara, a reserved seat for scheduled castes, is a CPI(M) stronghold. It became vacant after the sitting member, K. Radhakrishnan of the CPI(M), resigned to contest the Lok Sabha and became the LDF’s sole winner in the May election. Radhakrishnan, who was also a minister in the LDF government, is being replaced by U.R. Pradeep, who won the seat in 2016. He faces Congress’s Ramya Haridas, a former Lok Sabha member who Radhakrishnan defeated in May. The BJP candidate is K. Balakrishnan, a former gram panchayat president.
A muscular performance in these by-elections is crucial for the ruling LDF as it could be a dress rehearsal for the next assembly polls, which are 18 months away. The government has been reeling from an anti-incumbency wave that led to its rout in the last Lok Sabha elections. Even afterwards, ugly controversies regularly chase the government with no significant course correction from the LDF. A concerted UDF campaign accusing the chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, of striking deals with the BJP to soft-pedal Central investigations into corruption cases in which he and his family are allegedly involved poses a new challenge. Political observers feel this could affect the LDF’s influence among Muslims. Things look increasingly challenging for the LDF if it is to defend the Indian Left’s last citadel.
M.G. Radhakrishnan, a journalist based in Thiruvananthapuram, has worked with various print and electronic media organisations