IN two weeks’ time, 2.5 crore voters of Kerala will go to polling booths to elect their nominees for the three-tier panchayats. Fourteen districts of the state will go to polls in two phases – November 2 and November 5 – with seven districts polling in each phase. In the first phase, polling will be held in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Idukki, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur and Kasargode districts. Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Eranakulam, Trichur, Malappuram, Palaghat will vote in the second phase. Counting will be held on November 7, a day before the counting of Bihar assembly elections. The election process would be over by November 17.

Elections will be held to as many as 941 gram panchayats (15,962 wards), 152 block panchayats (2,078 wards), and 14 district panchayats (331 wards). Simultaneously, elections to 86 municipalities (3,088 wards) and six corporations (414 wards) including the newly-created Kannur will be held. The Oommen Chandy government had tried its best to postpone the elections but in vein. In the last panchayat elections in 2010, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) had suffered an unprecedented setback. Sixty per cent of the block panchayats were won by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). So it would be a Herculean task for UDF to retain these panchayat samitis and wards.

The coming elections would also be a litmus test for the Oommen Chandy government. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had himself admitted that the local body elections would be a referendum of sorts on the UDF government ahead of the assembly polls, slated for April-May 2016. If the UDF fails to perform well in the panchayat polls, it would definitely mar its chances in the assembly elections. So it is a do-or-die battle for Chandy. So he has been nurturing communal forces, and persuaded them to build a Third Front. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan has said that the chief minister had a role in striking of an alliance between the RSS and SNDP Yogam in the state. Addressing a Meet-the-Press in Calicut Press Club, Vijayan said Chandy expects favour from RSS to retain power. In return, Chandy has promised to help the RSS-BJP to open its account in Kerala assembly. Until now, BJP had no representation in assembly or Lok Sabha from the state.

CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has said that Chandy is backing the Third Front move, apprehending defeat in the assembly polls. He said Chandy had used SNDP Yogam leader Vellapally Natesan as a conduit to reach out to BJP, and even deputed UDF leader Rajan Babu to frame the constitution of the new outfit. Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan has said that the chief minister is the godfather who prevailed upon SNDP Yogam to cobble together a Third Front with the BJP. If it is a three-way fight, Chandy thinks, the UDF may scrape through. Last one-and-a-half years, RSS and VHP have been trying hard to build up a Third Front in the state. They deliberately wooed SNDP Yogam president Natesan for this purpose. Their target is to repeat the social engineering experiment of north India in Kerala.

Kerala has been known for its progressive thinking and negation of communal and reactionary ideas. So the BJP needs a mask to approach the people. Natesan fits in here. A deal was struck in Delhi when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah met Natesan and his family, and asked him to lead a Third Front in Kerala. State BJP leaders were kept in the dark. Naturally, resentment is brewing within both SNDP Yogam and BJP. Majority of the 6,500 SNDP units are against an open tie-up with RSS. The state BJP leadership is also against projecting Natesan as a front leader. The state BJP fears that it would destroy its traditional upper caste vote base. The chief of prominent upper caste organisation NSS, Sukumaran Nair, has publicly said that they are not willing to cooperate with an SNDP-led front.

In 1970s, NSS and SNDP had formed their political parties, namely NDP and SRP respectively. UDF supported both these parties. Even then, these formations could not sustain. Caste organisations like Deevara Sabha and Viswakarama Sabha had declared that they have no intention to be part of the so-called broad ‘Hindu Front’. In the course of time, opposition leader in Kerala assembly V S Achuthanandan has raised corruption charges against Natesan. He had demanded a CBI probe into the micro-finance network run by SNDP and its general secretary Natesan. According to him, SNDP took Rs 15 crore as loan at 2 per cent interest rate for the micro finance project from the State Backward Class Development Corporation. SNDP lent this money at 12 per cent interest rate to poor members of the Ezhava community through its self-help groups. This is in gross violation of guidelines that say maximum interest rate should be 5 per cent. Achuthanandan has also claimed that by forging fake utilisation certificate, Natesan used the money for personnel purposes. He alleged that SNDP Yogam institutions collect lakhs of rupees from job-seekers and does not maintain its accounts properly. Sree Narayana Dharmaveedika, a forum led by Gokulam Gopalan, has announced that it will approach the high court in this matter.

In the meantime, Thiruvanathapuram-based businessman Biju Ramesh alleged that Swami Saswathikananda, former president of Sree Narayana Dharmaparipalana Sangham Trust, was murdered in 2002. He also alleged Saswathikananda was murdered at the behest of SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellapally Natesan and his son Tushar Vellapally. Sister of Swami Saswadikanandas also supported this claim. Sivagiri mutt head Swami Prakashananda said that the 2002 death of former mutt head Swami Swasathikananda was unnatural and that the government should reinvestigate it. Amidst allegations and counter-allegations, the CPI(M) has demanded further investigation by a special investigation team.

Despite of all these sound and fury, LDF convener Vaikom Viswan exuded confidence of an impressive performance in the local body elections. LDF has completed the seat-sharing process and declared their candidates without any wrangling. Area-specific manifestos would be released on the basis of public opinion elicited earlier. The LDF leadership also decided to formally allocate seats for parties and groups that had been working in tandem with it in the recent past. Thus, seats have been allocated to Indian National League, CMP led by K R Aravindakshan and some other outfits. The UDF still continues to struggle with seat-sharing talks in what has turned out to be intra-party, inter-party tussle. The intra-party struggle is basically in the Congress, with Youth Congress objecting to candidate selection in many places. It turned violent in Thrissur district. Factional issues too have delayed candidate selection in several places. The tussle between the Indian Union Muslim League and the Congress in Malappuram and the Kerala Congress and Congress in Kottayam seem to be far from over.

The LDF leadership has called upon the people of the state to vote for its candidates in large numbers to defeat the UDF and communal forces.