Onmanorama poll meter tracks 12 closely-fought constituencies across different phases of campaign: Nemom, Manjeshwar, Palakkad, Kunnathunad, Pala, Kottarakkara, Peravoor, Thripunithura, Ambalappuzha, Taliparamba, Payyanur and Nattika. This is the final part on Nemom, where Onmanorama captures emerging trends from ground-level feed. Click to read the first and second parts here.

On March 4 evening, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was conducting a road show in the highway stretch from Killipalam towards Pappanamcode, it seemed as if Nemom's CPM candidate V Sivankutty felt delightful after scoring a cheeky public relations win earlier in the day.

Sivankutty had put up a Facebook post welcoming the PM to 'Vikasit Nemom', a mischievous appropriation of the BJP's 'Vikasit Kerala' slogan. The FB post then provided the PM a roadmap on where to spot the LDF government's 'development attractions' as the road show progresses.

As it turned out, Sivankutty's manner suggested distress. Both the PM and Sivankutty were on the road at the same time. The minister was visiting houses along a narrow byroad branching out of the highway on which Modi was paraded in slow motion. 

While Modi projected confidence, Sivankutty looked hesitant. He just shook hands, smiled and walked off to the next house.

“Sivankutty is coming here for the first time. Last time (2021) he never came this way,” said Shibu Parameshwaran a retired BSNL employee. This was Ram Nagar in Pappanamcode ward, a former CPM fortress wrested by the BJP in 2015. 

Later, Onmanorama talked to one of the CPM workers who moved with Sivankutty. “What happened to Sivankutty? Why was he reluctant to engage with voters like he usually does?”

“He would have been tired by then. He was out in the sun the whole day. That's all,” the CPM worker said. “But Sivankutty loves to talk, especially when children are around,” the CPM man was told.

“I am not sure but he could have been disturbed by the allegations of an SDPI deal. I heard him talk about it in a frustrated manner,” the CPM worker said.

SDPI's surprise revelation
A few days ago, SDPI state president C P Abdul Latheef revealed that the local leadership of the CPM had sought help in Nemom. 

“We are suspicious about the timing of the revelation. It came just when comrade Sivankutty agreed to a debate on development and Rajeev Chandrasekhar chickened out in quite an embarrassing fashion. We had clearly won the development argument,” said Krishna Kumar, a young DYFI member who does squad work in the Pappanamcode-Melamcode area. 

In 2021, too, the SDPI had transferred its votes to Sivankutty but had not boasted about it in public. 

“Now, in these last days of the campaign, the BJP has stopped talking about development and has instead focused on the SDPI connection. We fear that there could be a Hindu mobilisation in favour of the BJP,” Kumar said.

The CPM is aware that the BJP has grown in Nemom by feeding on its Hindu support base. In 2010, the BJP had just one councillor within the Nemom Assembly segment. In 2015, it had 13. Now, 16 of the 23 Nemom wards have a BJP councillor.

Ghost town called Congress
In the political turbulence that the alleged SDPI-CPM deal has caused, the Congress could be collateral damage. 

“There are many Hindu voters in this area who traditionally vote for the Congress but who in the last few years are finding the BJP's 'Hindu first' rhetoric highly appealing. They are willing to toss aside their secular distaste for communal hatred by speaking highly of the BJP's development claims. Such people are waiting for the right excuse to shift their votes to the BJP. This alleged SDPI-CPM nexus will provide them just that,” said Gopinadhan Nair, a local Congress leader who runs a stationery shop at Kalady. 

In these last days, BJP candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar has let out old ghosts to further scare traditional Congress voters. “The Congress is remote-controlled by the Muslim League. And there is a deal to provide the League a deputy chief minister and over six ministers,” Chandrasekhar said on Monday, the penultimate day of the campaign. 

But even without the Muslim bogey to frighten away its inhabitants, the Congress looks like a crumbling deserted house in most parts of Nemom.

“There is no one to even distribute slips in various booths,” said Sherry Joseph, a Congress worker in Karumam. “I have employed two youths for Rs 500 but they told me right at the outset that they are BJP voters. Since I wanted the slips to be distributed I had no choice but to take them on,” Sherry said.

Congress-dependent CPM
Dangerous depletion of Congress votes is a threat to the CPM. 

“Sabarinathan might not secure as much votes as K Muraleedharan but we strongly hope that he would collect somewhere around 30,000 votes (Muraleedharan had polled 36,524 votes in 2021). If he doesn't, Sivankutty will lose,” said Bhasan, a CPM local committee member.

The CPM knows it will be behind in the eastern areas of Nemom like Ponnumangalam, Punnakkamugal, Pappanamcode, Estate, Nedumcaud, Kalady, Karumom and Melamcode. “But our plan is to keep the BJP lead to the minimum in these areas and then score big in the eastern areas like Punchakkary, Poonkulam, Manacaud, Ambalathara and Kamaleshwaram. This was how we won last time,” Bhasan said.

Problem is, to keep the BJP lead to the minimum in the eastern areas, the CPM wants the Congress to perform like an useful lower-order batsman. “We need the Congress to collect at least their core votes in the eastern areas. I don't think that will happen this time,” Bhasan said.

Muslim dilemma
The Congress plight has confused the Muslim community. “Certain aspects of the CPM's behaviour do not belong to the secular space they claim to occupy. But here in Nemom, the emergence of the BJP is the bigger threat,” said Sulaiman Haji, the chairman of Manacaud Valiiyapalli Muslim Jama-ath. 

Rafeek Muhammad, a prominent trader in Kalippankulam, said that the community was hurt at what he called Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan “wicked and spineless” approach to Vellapally Natesan's Muslim hatred. “Though we know that Sabarinathan will be third, I still think at least 40 per cent of Muslims here will vote for the Congress unlike in 2021 when nearly 75 per cent of the community had voted for Sivankutty,” Muhammad said.

VERDICT: A possible Hindu consolidation and a weak Congress will see BJP recapturing the only Assembly seat it had ever won in Kerala.
Click to read the first and second parts here.