Kerala local body polls: Fronts make fervent bid to sway electoral outcome on the day of ‘silent campaigning’

Key Highlights

• The court verdict in the actor-rape case and Palakkad MLA Rahul Mamkootathil’s anticipatory bail hearing in the second rape case crowded out the usual election-eve muckraking and agenda-setting rhetoric from the airwaves.
• Nevertheless, on the ground, the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) campaigns appeared almost equally focused on ensuring that voters, including newly enfranchised youngsters, those from poor neighbourhoods, and marginalised sections of society, did not feel disaffected or believe that their votes did not matter in the larger scheme of things.
• The LDF, for one, seemed to leverage its numbers by deploying scheme workers and members of the urban poverty mitigation scheme alongside party workers to persuade “on the fence and unconvinced” voters to support the ruling front, which faces anti-incumbency after nearly 9 years in government.
• Cooperative bank corruption, depositors left in the lurch, women’s safety, upwardly spiralling vegetable prices, potholed roads, disruption and safety issues precipitated by the NH-66 construction in traffic and population-dense urban areas, human-wildlife conflict, and cratering crop prices fired up election eve conversations.
• The spectre of tactical cross-voting, apprehensions about a minute shift in voting behaviour, and recalcitrant lesser allies niggled at the minds of campaign managers of the opposing alliances.