AN unholy and surreptitious alliance between the Congress-led United Democratic Front and the BJP is not uncommon in the electoral history of Kerala. An undercover mutual understanding between them was found explicit exactly three decades ago when elections to the Assembly and Lok Sabha were held simultaneously in the summer of 1991.

Leaders of the UDF and the BJP campaigned separately for their common candidates in Vadakara Lok Sabha seat and Beypore Assembly seat. Candidature of RSS leaders, Rathna Singh and Madhavankutti, who were the candidates for Vadakara and Beypore respectively, was the result of a conspiracy hatched by the top leaders of Congress, IUML and the BJP. The term ‘Co-Lea-B’ (a mixture of Congress, League and BJP) became popular in the election scenario since then and this term was used extensively in all the elections where this unholy alliance was formed. The arithmetic of vote sharing gave huge hopes to the ‘Co-Lea-B’ partners in Vadakara and Beypore. But the results delivered a huge setback to the conspirators of ‘Co-Lea-B’ model. LDF candidates K P Unnikrishnan and T K Hamza emerged victorious in these seats.

This ‘Co-Lea-B’ experiment was repeated on many occasions with an agenda to defeat the LDF in elections right from the local bodies to the Lok Sabha. ‘Co-Lea-B’ experience was successful in the Nemom Assembly constituency in 2016. A significant portion of Congress votes were crossed over to O Rajagopal, the BJP candidate. Thus BJP opened its account in the Kerala Assembly.

In this election too, the same ‘Co-Lea-B’ exercise was repeated in many Assembly seats. Prominently, a conspiracy has been hatched in Vattiyoorkavu, which is an adjacent constituency to Nemom. The alliance was visible as the local leaders were not seen in the campaign trail. After the polling, UDF candidate Veena S Nair’s posters and notices were found deserted in a scrap dealer’s shop and at a banana plantation. After finding posters weighing 50 kilograms in a scrap shop, the KPCC ordered an inquiry. KPCC president, Mullappali Ramachandran himself admitted that there has been an attempt from the Congress leaders to defeat the UDF candidate. He constituted a three-member committee headed by KPCC general secretary, Jonson Abraham. Balu, a mandal president of the Congress was dismissed from the party.

A deal between the UDF and the BJP was definitive as Congress put up Veena S Nair, a low profile candidate who was defeated in the 2015 corporation elections against the LDF sitting MLA, V K Prasant and BJP leader V V Rajesh. Apart from this, BJP’s nominations were rejected in Thalassery, Guruvayoor and Devikulam constituencies thus facilitating the cross-over of votes.