In an election in which apparently no particular ‘wave’ swayed the voters, but at the same time the Congress-led United Democratic Front and the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front fought close battle in most of the 20 constituencies, Kerala recorded a high voter turnout on Thursday.
Conventional political wisdom says that a high polling percentage would favour the UDF, but this wisdom has occasionally been proved wrong too. The wisdom is based on the reasoning that the LDF vote bank is more committed than the UDF’s and hence pro-LDF voters would cast their votes at any cost.
Moreover, the LDF’s campaign machinery is much more efficient than the UDF’s in getting all their supporters out to vote. The UDF voters are slightly less committed and hence personal inconveniences would dampen their enthusiasm to vote.
So, the reasoning goes, the higher the voting percentage, better the prospects for the UDF as it shows more number of UDF supporters have voted.
The high voting percentage was across all the 20 constituencies. But the upswing in polling percentage was higher in the North Kerala (Malabar) constituencies; and lower in the south Kerala constituencies. This, however, is to pattern.
The Malabar region is generally more politically divided. Kannur and Vadakara, the home base of the CPI(M), as usual, recorded the highest polling percentage this time while Thiruvananthapuram and Pathanamthitta in the south, had the lowest percentages. The polling pattern is almost a repeat of 2009. The polling percentage in 2009 was 73.3.
3-cornered contestThis time, however, Thiruvananthapuram was expected to perform much better because of the three-cornered contest there. BJP candidate O. Rajagopal was thought to change the arithmetic in the constituency. The BJP focused its effort and organizational acumen on Thiruvananthapuram as it was the party’s only hope, if at all.
UDF’s Sashi Tharoor, who had won with a comfortable majority in 2009, was slightly handicapped this time and LDF’s Bennett Abraham had gained a lot of mileage in the last lap of campaigning. The three-corner fight, however, failed to bolster the polling percentage, which turned out to be the lowest in the State.
The polling performance in Kollam, which saw the toughest fight this time because of the contest between the Revolutionary Socialist Party’s NK Premachandran and CPI(M)’s M.A. Baby, was also not as high as expected.
The RSP had been a long-time ally of the CPI(M), but early last month had quit the LDF camp and joined the UDF. The hot battle however did not much increase the polling percentage.