What the winner must learn from the loser in Kerala: No leader is inevitable

The victory of the Congress-led United Democratic Front is matched in depth and depth by the defeat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front in Kerala. The winners have a direct lesson to attract from the loser: that Kerala is characteristically disapproving of an über-leader who outshines his personal social gathering and retains the highlight firmly on himself. The outgoing Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had made this election all about himself. The tagline of the LDF marketing campaign was “Who Else, but LDF,” with Mr. Vijayan as its sole face, looming in imposingly giant hoardings throughout the State. The UDF marketing campaign, in contrast, was a teamwork of unprecedented synergy amongst its leaders — a reality that every one of them underscored after the victory. The UDF and its supporters must now resist the temptation to mimic the Pinarayi mannequin of management.

Strikingly at odds with Left custom, its marketing campaign — very similar to its authorities over the final 10 years — revolved round Mr. Vijayan’s persona, leaving little room for the CPI(M)’s personal long-held inner processes of collective decision-making. No additional proof is required than the proven fact that a minimum of six senior social gathering leaders left the CPI(M) and contested with the UDF’s assist in this election; three of them received. It is additionally evident that CPI(M) employees switched sides and voted for the UDF in giant numbers, as the outcomes in social gathering strongholds — together with some in Kannur district — clarify. Mr. Vijayan himself trailed in the early rounds of counting in his personal constituency, a celebration bastion. The degeneration setting into the LDF so unsettled its personal sympathisers that Malayalam author Ok. Satchidanandan — a lifelong fellow-traveller of the Left — stated publicly that he wished the LDF to lose energy this time. In the finish, the declare of inevitability round Mr. Vijayan is the single most vital issue that did the LDF in. A defining characteristic of LDF rule traditionally has been the social gathering’s management over the authorities. The centralisation of energy in the Chief Minister over the final 10 years weakened the social gathering’s mediatory function in politics and governance.