Kerala Legislative Assembly Elections - Part2 - Political Parties..

I thought I'll dedicate a part or two for the prime players in this whole thing, political parties. Off late, Kerala is witnessing both birth of new ideologies at regular intervals and merger of erstwhile opponents. "There are no permanent opponents in Politics" is the most famous quote from one of those 'single hero' parties. Let's start analyzing the major parties in the order of their strength.

Before that, some background facts!!

I feel there are only 3 major socialist-secular-nationalist parties in Kerala- CPM (communist party of India, Marxist), INC(Indian National Congress) and CPI (Communist Part of India).  of the 3, CPM's nationalist outlook is still vague. I think they feel more associated with China & Cuba than with Karnataka & Gujarat.
The minor socialist-secular-nationalists are the the old Janata Party followers (i lost count of their factions in kerala, I think 3-4 is a decent guess).
JSS (Janathipathya sahakarana Sangham), followers of K R Gouriyamma, the legendary ex-communist.
CMP (Communist Marxist Party), followers of M V Raghavan, another mercurial ex-communist

Rest of parties in Kerala are Communal by nature (Communal and fascist are 2 words with entirely different meanings but in Kerala these 2 terms are used as synonyms in loose terms). They could be divided into Soft and Hard Communal parties..

Soft Communals are  - IUML (Indian Union Muslim League), KCM (Kerala Congress Mani), BJP (Bharathiya Janatha Party - now this is going to irk quite a few guys. but I still believe BJP is by and large a soft communal party. some leaders are exceptions ), KCB (Kerala Congress Balakrishna Pillai - I termed this party as communal because, Balakrishna Pillai recently commented that the support from his community is more valuable for him than anything else and that community isn't his voters but NSS).

Hard Communals are - SDPI (Socialist Democratic Party of India), PDP (People's Democratic Party) and DHRM (Dalit Human Rights Movement).

Demographic distribution of Kerala indicate that around 70% of people are from backward communities. (I included whole of muslim population, latin catholics, ezhava community and all other communities classified as backward. Since Creamy Layer isn't strictly enforced and income certificate of your choice is the most easily "procurable govt authorization", I think this is a reasonable hypothesis).  if you exclude the 10% from this pie as not eligible for assistance on financial ground/ not applying for assistance on ethical ground, 60% is relying on assistance from government in one form or another. That's a significant chunk and that could explain why sometimes govt comes up with favoring policies. end of the day, it's all about vote bank politics.

Of all the parties mentioned above, CPM is the most popular party in kerala. Until very recently, CPM was focusing on the 70% of chunk (backward classes) for their electoral wins. it was considered the only choice for Marginalized, oppressed, poor and needy. To a greater extent, this claim stands true since early communist governments did a lot to assist the needy. even now, CPM insists it's cadres to ensure all govt. benefits are reaching everyone in a religious manner. Also, it conducts periodic check on what schemes can be applied to it's supporters and ensure all social welfare schemes are predominantly benefitting it's supporters first !! . What I personally don't like about this periodic check are 2 things. 1. if they someone not loyal to them is getting benefits, they make an honest attempt to stop it (to apply some pressure to switch sides) 2. if possible, remove that family from the voter's list itself so that they aren't a menance any more. (((Lots of wonders can happen if you can manipulate the voter's list a bit. the whole concept of voter's list via Ward itself is ridiculous. there should be a single voter's list for a state. that will help to avoid multiple voting, the most common phenomenon in kerala. Also, ink isn't a good way to prevent multiple voting. I wish Aadhar or UID will stop multi voting. not that it will free up democracy of all the evils but just one less.  ))))
if you  analyze the supporters of CPM, few interesting aspects will stand tall. Most of the CPM supporters, will be direct beneficiaries of govt. some broad classifications include either a Civil Services Employee, or a co operative sector worker, beneficiaries of govt schemes, employee in one of those corporation/boards, or beneficiary of support in various forms including reservations. Police force, Numerous Boards, Corporations, Co-operative societies, Govt Supported firms, almost all temporary employement positions with govt are the monopoly of CPM supporters.

In last decade, CPM management ( I prefer to call CPM a corporate rather than a party) woke up to the realities of neo liberalism that's catching up in this country. it took no time for them to add another class to their umbrella of followers; a class which it vehmently fightly until then - Affluent Business Class in Kerala and Middle East!! . Business men embraced the welcome even more warmer since it'll protect their interests,assets and made powerful party's leadership their dinner buddies. "Investors are looking for profits" - proclaimed our industries minister !!. Many other leaders were busy issuing conduct certificates to prominent business icons whose trails are not as transparent as it should have been. this transformation is very clear if you look at grass root levels. who was a  communist leader, 20 years back?? A school teacher, A manual labourer, A union activist, a blue collar worker? utmost an academician?? and who are they seen with?? - almost always the common man.
who is a communist leader now?? A real estate business man? Misc Business Man? Rich man of the province? Enterpreneur?  who are they seen with?? - Business class  and affluent friends invariably.
Today, in party rifts (which are unprecedented in its history) is taking it's toll on the party's popularity. Common man is in dilemma. however the reality is he cannot change his loyality to any better place.

INC is the second popular party in kerala after CPM. The current plight of congress in kerala is pitiable despite the way UPA is treating it. 2 cabinet Ministers, 1 MoS with independent charge, 2 MoS. Kerala never got rewarded this way ever. however, the situation of congress in kerala can be best compared to an inverted pyramid in corporate analogy. it broke apart few times in history due to over crowding of top with "Leaders". Today, this party has more leaders than workers. In many districts, it has even out sourced politics to it's allies in UDF and have no party infrastructure in place. The only reason, Congress is still prominent in kerala is due to UDF. the smaller parties in their ever increasing desire for power (Power is exponentially proportional to Wealth), pushes Congress to power at regular intervals. I think some of the parties have started realizing, Congress is more of a co-ordinator than a real leader in terms of "number of acutual workers".  However a significant chunk of neutral people in state get fed up with communist governments in just one term and "force" congress to be in power once in every decade. Congress, with it's characteristic humbleness accepts the "burden". If CPM leadership of this state is any humble, imaginative and less arrogant, this state would have been a West Bengal much before. While Communists can be best explained by the slogan, "Party First, People Next", Congress fits the best for the slogan "Wealth Only and Always". Few leaders have made Congress their family affair and through the best explained term of "Groupism", they ensured any popular leader outside their "Syndicate" has no survival. (best e.g. is V M Sudheeran, the most popular congress leader among public but not within the party). INC was traditionally supported by majority of so called minorities (they form 48% total population). but off late, KCM, IUML, SDPI, PDP and almost every other party made inroads to this vote bank. Congress, with it's lethargic and sagging heavy weight top leadership who is hanging onto their chairs as much as they can lost the vigor and trust of common man. Allies of UDF started getting stronger at the expense of congress and got greedier than ever. In every govt and even in center, they started asking for lion's share and key portfolios. Series of allegations involving allies left congress at the receiving end since the vote banks of allies are not based on political ideologies. So everytime something went wrong, congress took the beating and it kept weakening congress. Today, Congress is literally at the mercy of it's allies. Top Congress Leaders seem to have got into silent pacts with the allies and hence their interests are protected by and large. Net Result : Congress is losing it's infrastructure, young followers and mechanism to reach people at a faster pace. Not so far in future, Congress in kerala will have to deal with the same fate party underwent in UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Orissa.

I'm planning another section for the rest of the parties.

So, in case you have agreement/disagreement , please share it.