Oommen Chandy for Nemom: Will Congress roll out a game-changer in Kerala?

There can't be a better strategy than fielding Oommen Chandy from Nemom for the Congress to keep its hopes afloat in the April 6 Assembly elections in Kerala.

With less than one month for campaigning and deadlock over candidate selection continuing, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) is far behind the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the perception battle in the southern state.

Deploying Oommen Chandy to wrest Nemom, the lone constituency represented by the BJP in the state, could, however, change the political narrative in favour of the opposition party in a split of a second.

In Kerala, the CPM has been successfully projecting itself as the only reliable force fighting the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political offshoot the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Congress, on the other hand, is portrayed as a party that is waiting to be devoured by the BJP, whether it wins or loses the polls.

The CPM has no dearth of examples to cite from across the country to drive its point home. Moreover, the Congress is blamed for paving way for the BJP's win in Nemom by allotting the seat to a minor ally, which finished a distant third in the constituency in 2016.

Fielding a strong candidate in Nemom would be the Congress's answer to all such criticism.

Its impact would be visible across the state, according to one line of thought.

Because, in Kerala it's important to take the Sangh Parivar head-on.

Oommen Chandy, the two-term chief minister, at present, is the strongest candidate Congress can field in Nemom.

At 77, the soft-spoken Chandy, despite being a factional leader within the party circles, is the most popular leader of the Congress in Kerala.

On Thursday, Oommen Chandy has reportedly conveyed his willingness to contest from Nemom to the party high command.

However, when journalists confronted, he denied all such reports just like he did a few weeks ago when the reports emerged about such a scenario first.

A source close to the Congress high-command, however, told Onmanorama that “all those are possibilities”, suggesting that the central leadership was persuading the Congress veteran to take up the challenge.

The Congress's candidates list is set to be announced Friday evening. If Oommen Chandy agrees to contest from Nemom before that the political temperature in the state would be on the boil.

If Oommen Chandy agrees to fight from Nemom, which quintessentially means to fight the BJP, the Left Democratic Front, hoping to create history by retaining power, will have to rework its strategy, which at present, is to write off the Congress as a non-player.

'Oommen Chandy in Nemom' could be a re-run of the 'Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad' strategy that propelled the Congress to a historic win in Kerala in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls even as the party suffered a rout across the country.

The Congress has played this card even before that many times. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Sonia Gandhi had persuaded Amarinder Singh to take on Arun Jaitley in Amritsar.

The strategy clicked with Amarinder beating Jaaitley by a margin of nearly a lakh desppite a Modi wave in play across the country.

Despite the buzz about Oommen Chandy's probable candidature in Nemom, posters and graffiti have appeared all over Puthupally, the constituency the former CM has been representing for half a decade, seeking votes for him. The CPM has announced Jaick C Thomas as its candidate to take on the Congress veteran again.

Saffron bastion

Going by the poll arithmetic, Nemom is still a saffron fort. The BJP had led by over 2,000 votes in Nemom in the recent local body elections too. It's one assembly segment where Shashi Tharoor trailed even when he won from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency by nearly one lakh votes in 2019.

All that suggests that nobody can ensure a victory for even Oommen Chandy there. Even if Oommen Chandy tastes defeat, for the first time after winning from his home turf Puthuppally for the past 50 years, the battle for Nemom would remain a chapter in Kerala's electoral history.

The CPM has announced former MLA V Sivankutty as its candidate in Nemom while the BJP is likely to field the hardcore Hindutva proponent Kummanam Rajasekharan. Will it be Oommen Chandy or just another UDF candidate in Nemom? Kerala is all ears. The Congress list is slated to be out later in the day.