The CPM's post-Puthuppally verdict game plan is to heap all the credit on former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. "The sympathy wave has played a big role in the victory," CPM state secretary M V Govindan told reporters on Friday.
Govindan, however, is unwilling to concede the other big reason for the defeat: corruption. It is indisputable that the nostalgia for the former Chief Minister, who's death in July nessitated the bypoll in Puthuppally constituency, was the predominant theme of the election.
But when Jaick C Thomas adopted development as his campaign slogan, it was not trivialised by voters in Puthuppally. They seemed eager to discuss development issues. The way the UDF was drawn into a debate on development suggested that the Front had indeed feared that it would replace the pro-Oommen Chandy sentiment as the decisive issue of the election.
In various panchayats like Manarcadu, Pampady, Ayarkunnam and even UDF citadels like Puthuppally and Vakathanam, Onmanorama had come across voters who were bitter about the lack of development in their areas.
They mostly complain about roads and drinking water. Standing along the side of a mud road, this is what a 70-year-old woman told Chandy Oommen during one of his house visits: "If something happens to us, an ambulance cannot come up the road to our houses here."
If the debate around development still did not convert into votes, it was not because voters thought Oommen Chandy could be forgotten one last time.
"Voters are not foolish. Love for Oommen Chandy sir is one thing but in an aspirational semi-urban constituency like Puthuppally, livelihood and existential issues always matter. It failed to work in Puthuppally only because voters did not trust the LDF government enough," said Sebastian Palathra, an amateur political historian from Manarcadu.
Swapna vs Veena
Many voters Onmanorama encountered along the constituency said they believed the charge that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan had received huge monthly payments for doing nothing. "Neither my family nor I believed what Swapna Suresh had said. But the charge against the Chief minister's daughter seems to have merit. Pinarayi attended six public meetings in Puthuppally. Not once did he mention the allegation. Even if he had merely said this allegation was false, I would vote for Jaick. But Pinarayi's refusal to talk about the allegations confirms my suspicion that there is something fishy," P T Ambrose, a staunch CPM supporter, had told Onmanorama standing in front of his bakery at Maalam.
Jaick's Achilles' heel
According to Palathra, Pinarayi was Jaick's biggest liability.
"In fact, the CPM did its best to keep Vijayan out of the campaign. Vijayan's face was not featured in any of Jaick's campaign posters or billboards. The only time we saw the Chief Minister's face was on posters announcing his public meetings. But these, it had to be said, were considerably smaller in size, as though the party wanted to keep Vijayan's presence in the constituency to the minimum. Other than these small posters, the CPM had wisely masked the existence of the Chief Minister," Palathra said.
Tale of two CMs
When two chief ministers are the centre of attraction during a campaign, one former and the other serving, comparisons are bound to occur.
For instance, in Pampady and Akalakkunnam, where the Chief Minister arrived protected within an imposing security cordon, Onmanorama overheard voters (in both cases autorickshaw drivers) wondering aloud about the security arrangements and testing it against the Oommen Chandy standard.
"We once had a Chief Minister. At the most, he would come in a car, with perhaps just one escort. Most of the time, we could see him walking through our roads smiling at everyone. Here is a Chief Minister we cannot even see from a distance," an auto driver at Pampady was heard telling friends. Here is what the Akalakkunnam driver said: "Pinarayi Vijayan is imposing his royalty on us."
U-turn of the faithful
The Jacobite anger, reflected in the verdict, is also more a sign of anti-government sentiment than nostalgia for Oommen Chandy. During the 2020 local body polls and 2021 Assembly elections, the Jacobites in Puthuppally were lured to the LDF camp in the hope that the government would pass the Church Bill that would restore to their possession churches they had lost to the Orthodox faction after the 2017 Supreme Court verdict.
This was not to be, and the Jacobites felt betrayed. This anti-government sentiment among Jacobites, especially in Manarcadu panchayat where the community has a significant presence, played a major role in Chandy's huge victory margin.
In 2021, Manarcadu was the panchayat where Chandy suffered the biggest erosion of votes. He lost by nearly 1500 votes to Jaick. Two years later, his son earned a lead of over 4,000 votes in the panchayat.
There was a late attempt by the Jacobite church to influence the faithful.
Jacobite Syrian Church Metropolitan trustee Bishop Joseph Mor Gregorios made a public appeal to the faithful to be grateful to the Pinarayi government for the Cemetery Bill, which allowed Jacobites to bury their dead in churches where their ancestors have been buried. The Bishop even suggested that the Church Bill is on its way. He said he himself had talked to the Chief Minister.
As it turned out, the Bishop's appeal was not persuasive enough.
CPM's Plan B
The CPM played to win but in Puthuppally, Plan B was to keep the Congress lead low. In fact, the party believed it could.
Top CPM campaign managers had told Onmanorama off the record that any Congress victory below 15,000, even 20,000, would still be considered a victory for Jaick. "Such a margin is the obvious result of the Oommen Chandy factor, not a verdict against the CPM or the government," a leader said. A low margin could also have been effectively employed to dismiss any discussion on corruption charges.
Chandy Oommen's record lead has upset the CPM calculations.
