Resentment is growing among a section of the Congress leaders at the State leadership over the party’s humiliating defeat in the three-tier local bodies in the district.
This apart, they also feel that the IUML has cornered all the three posts of the chairman of Payyoli, Feroke and Koduvally municipalities where the United Democratic Front (UDF) has secured a majority. They admit that the IUML won more seats than the Congress and in Feroke municipality the chairperson is being supported by two IUML rebels.
A Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee office-bearer on condition of anonymity said that the chinks in the armour of the Congress party had helped the IUML to get an upper-hand in local bodies.
The Congress party won the majority of seats out of the total the UDF got in the district (grama panchayats- 521, block panchayats- 75, district panchayat- 11, municipalities- 107 and Corporation -20).
The traditional Muslim votes of the IUML that usually salvaged the Congress candidates as in the two Lok Sabha polls of 2009 and 2014 did not help this time.
Muslim votes
On the other hand, the CPI (M)-led LDF could get hold of the votes of the Muslim community. Unexpectedly the Thiyya vote of the LDF witnessed only minor erosion. But it was the Congress that lost a large portion of Thiyya and Nair communities’ votes to the BJP, he said.
The Congress leader said that CPI(M) had fielded many Thiyya candidates when that party sensed that the BJP-SNDP electoral tie-up went against the LDF in many places.
This was evident in the newly created municipality of Feroke.
The UDF failed to assess the strong undercurrents taking shape in the form of communal polarisation against the coalition.
Soft on Hindutva
The Congress party had been soft on the Hindutva agenda of the BJP whereas the CPI (M) played the Muslim minority card to the hilt, he said.
The Congress party has not been able to nurture strong leaders from the Muslim community in spite of the DCC president’s post being occupied by that community for last 20 years.
If the situation continues, the UDF will face the same fate in the Assembly polls next year as it happened last time when the LDF won 10 out of the 13 Assembly segments in the district, the Congress leader said.
