It is going to be a long poll summer for political parties in Kerala as polling for the Assembly election will be held only on May 16 —almost two and a half months away—as per the schedule announced by the Election Commission on Friday and this is causing relief and confusion at the same time for them.
The announcement of a comparatively delayed election process came from the EC just when several major parties like the Congress, Muslim league and BJP had already drawn up their preliminary lists of candidates expecting that the election could be held by the third week of April. All the major parties had scheduled their preparations as per this expectation.
On the one hand the political parties are relieved that they will now get about 75 long days for electioneering but on the other side they are worried about the difficulties in keeping the spirit and the energy of the leaders and workers and resources unexhausted through such a long period and the possibility of new issues replacing existing ones making performance unpredictable.
“Formally speaking, the time for the poll process is just 24 days from the date of issuance of notification but since electioneering has already started for all practical purposes, the entire summer is going to be spent on election by the parties. It will be extremely exhausting considering the summer’s intensity this year,” said a Kochi-based psephologist.
Political parties had suggested that the last week of April or first week of May would be ideal for holding election in the State but their expectation was that polling could take place by the third week of April. Though the tenure of the current Assembly comes to a close on May 31 only, May 18 has generally been considered as the date for ministers’ oath-taking.
The most worried about the long wait for the election to be over is the CPI(M), leading the Opposition lDF which expects to grab power from the Congress-led UDF in this election. Several CPI(M) leaders secretly admitted that they were worried about the possibility of the current issues troubling the UDF dissipating in these two and a half months.
“There will normally be several practical difficulties when electioneering has to be done for such a long time. But it has its own advantages also,” said lDF convener Vaikom Viswan. “The biggest advantages is that the clever players will get enough time for hitting out and retaliating and erasing issues and bringing up new ones,” said a senior pro-Congress journalist.
KNA Khader, senior leader of the Muslim league, second biggest UDF partner, revealed the front’s hope in connection with the EC-announced schedule: “We will get enough time to for effective campaigning which will help us remove the smokescreen of charges (like those in the solar scam and bar bribery scam) created against us by the Opposition.”
Also, the model code of conduct that came into effect with the announcement of the poll schedule is unlikely to worry the ruling UDF whose main plank in this election is its development track record as ceremonies associated with all the major projects it had initiated had been completed in the past two weeks.
However, the CPI(M) tried to put up a bold face. “The UDF is currently facing charges that no other Government in Kerala has faced. These are not going to disappear all of a sudden. But the issues we are speaking about in this election are not limited to that. There are a host of issues relating to the lives of the people,” said senior CPI(M) leader MV Govindan.
The BJP, which hopes to make more gains than just opening account in the State, said it is standing to gain from this long wait. “It is a big relief. We will get enough time to convince the people of what we stand for. The political climate is in our favour. This wait will help us to solidify that further to ensure victory,” said State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan.