A survey has cautioned Kerala’s Congress leadership against being complacent on the prospects of the party and the ruling UDF coalition it is heading in the coming lok Sabha election despite the repeated claims of leaders that the party and the front will repeat the 2009 performance by facing the polls in unity.
The survey, carried out by a Bangalore-based agency commissioned by Kerala’s Congress president Ramesh Chennithala, has said that there is every possibility for the party and the UDF to face a huge setback in the lok Sabha polls as the political circumstance prevalent in the State is against them.
The party and the ruling coalition are facing intense anti-incumbency sentiment owing to several factors, the agency has said in its survey report presented to the PCC leadership. The UDF had bagged 16 out of the total 20 lok Sabha seats in Kerala in the 2009 polls. The Congress had won 13 of the 17 seats it had contested.
According to the survey report, humiliating defeat is possible in the coming election even in seats where Congress candidates had won by handsome margins if the same candidates contest again. The survey advised the party leadership that new faces would have to be fielded in such constituencies even to put up a big fight.
There were only two seats out of the total 20 where sure win for the Congress or the UDF could be expected, said the survey report. It said that hectic efforts at reorganising the party would be required for it to offer a tough fight against the opponents in the changed circumstance, sources in the Congress said.
There was intense dissatisfaction among the grassroots of the party over the style of functioning of the leadership, the survey report warned. Party sources said that the apathy the leadership had been showing to calls for democratic elections to the party committees and the rampant group wars in the top were some of the reasons for this unhappiness.
Senior party leaders refused to confirm or deny the existence of such a survey report but they admitted that the reported projections were not unrealistic. Problems in governance, eruption of scams, corruption allegations against the Government and feuds in the ruling
front had made the situation difficult for the Congress and the UDF, they said.
“It is true that the image of the Congress and the Government it is leading has been tarnished due to various factors, especially the solar scam and the suspicious approach in issues like the private Greenfield airport project for Aranmula (in Pathanamthitta). I don’t think there is enough time now to correct the mistakes,” said a KPCC member from Thiruvananthapuram.
However, a senior leader belonging to the Congress’s ‘A’ group led by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy aired the suspicion that the survey could be part of an effort by the ‘I” group of party president Chennithala to put the blame for all possible setbacks in the coming election on the shoulders of the Chief Minister and his faction.
“leaders of the ‘I’ group have been for the past one year raising allegations against the Government for all the problems the party has been going through. Unfortunately for the CM, many things have gone wrong for the Government,” said a leader close to Chandy.