When everything was going against it in the national level in the 16th lok Sabha election, the Congress party got some relief in Kerala as it managed to bag eight of the 20 seats in the State even as the left proved its inability to cash in on the frailties of its main rival despite the fact that it improved its tally to eight seats in this election from the four it had won in 2009.
Kerala's Congress-led ruling UDF bagged 12 seats, and the six Union Ministers of the front who were in the fray retained the seats they had won in 2009. The front had fielded 14 of its 16 sitting MPs and 11 of them were elected. Congress and UDF leaders expressed relief at the election result saying that the Marxist propaganda had failed to influence the voters.
The victory of the candidates of the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF in eight of the 20 seats lost its sheen as the Marxists were unable to win the prestigious contests. The biggest blow the CPI(M) suffered was in Kollam where MA Baby, the only Politbureau member in the fray in the entire country, lost it to NK Premachandran of the RSP which had deserted the lDF in March last.
The other big losses the CPI(M) suffered were in Vadakara, where the party could settle for nothing less than victory because of the allegation against it of involvement in the brutal killing of rebel Marxist leader TP Chandrasekharan. However, young Marxist aspirant AN Shamseer lost the contest there to Congress's Mullappally Ramachandran by a thin margin of 3,306 votes.
The BJP faced disappointment once more as its hopes of opening account in God's Own Country for the first time shattered when its candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, O Rajagopal, lost the race to Congress's Shashi Tharoor at the fag-end of counting. However, Rajagopal claimed the second position pushing left's Independent candidate Bennet Abraham to third place.
The prominent leaders of the UDF who made it to the Parliament from Kerala are Union Ministers Shashi Tharoor, Kodikkunnil Suresh, KC Venugopal, KV Thomas, Mullappally Ramachandran (all from Congress) and E Ahamed of the Muslim league who retained the Muslim-majority Malappuram seat by Kerala's biggest winning margin of 194,739 votes.
However, the defeat of the party's national spokesman PC Chacko in the Chalakkudy seat in the hands of the CPI(M)'s Independent candidate, filmstar innocent, came as a shock for the Congress. "Indeed, it is a matter of great concern. We will examine the factors that led to Chacko's defeat," said UDF convener PP Thankachan.
Chacko was elected from Thrissur in 2009 but he got himself transferred from there to Chalakkudy after getting indications of possible defeat and forced the party high command to shift Chalakkudy MP KP Dhanapalan to Thrissur. The result was a double defeat. Dhanapalan was defeated in Thrissur by CPI's CN Jayadevan by a margin of 38,277 votes.
The UDF did achieve some relief in the current election but it suffered huge erosion in the margins of its winning candidates while most of sitting MPs of the lDF who won the polls improved their margins considerably. When the margin of Tharoor fell from 99,998 to just 14,501, CPI(M)'s MB Rajesh increased his margin from a mere 1,820 to 105,323 votes.
Though the UDF had lost four of the seats it had won in 2009, the results of this election came as a huge relief to top Congress leaders as there were rumours that there could be major changes in the Government as well as in the top of the State party in the case of huge defeat. State Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said that he was satisfied with the result.
Observers say that the ability of the State Congress to avoid total electoral collapse and the inability of the national leadership to take the party even up to the 50-seat may ensure Chandy's continuance as Chief Minister. Also, newly appointed PCC chief VM Sudheeran can claim that his strategies for the polls had proved to be effective, they say.