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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENNAI 000112 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O.  12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KIRF PHUM IN
SUBJECT: BHARAT BALLOT 09: ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IN KERALA 
 
REF:  A) CHENNAI 104 B) CHENNAI 094 C) CHENNAI 066 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  The 21.6 million voters in the state of Kerala 
will go to polls on April 16 in the first of five phases of India's 
national elections.  During a road tour of Kerala, we found the 
Congress party in an upbeat mood expecting to win a majority of the 
20 seats that are up for grabs, thus reversing the terrible defeat 
it suffered in 2004 when it failed to win a single seat.  The ruling 
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) and its allies are scrambling 
to counter the Congress alliance's momentum.  Voter disenchantment 
with the CPM-led state government weighs heavily on the CPM-led Left 
Democratic Front (LDF).  The CPM's attempts to bring in Muslim 
voters by aligning with a controversial Islamic party have taken 
center stage.  The consensus is that Congress is likely to gain at 
least ten seats despite concerns that the party's New Delhi-centered 
candidate selection is out of sync with local sentiments and could 
result in setbacks in a few constituencies.  End summary. 
 
Congress in an upbeat mood 
----------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) The Congress party is hoping to make dramatic gains in 
Kerala when the state's 21.6 million voters go to the polls on April 
16 to elect 20 members of Parliament.  During a recent trip from 
Thiruvananthapuram in the south to Palakkad in the north, we met 
with a wide range of people, including journalists, candidates, 
party officials, and agricultural workers.  Many believed the 
Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) coalition is on the 
upswing.  They often cited Kerala's traditionally strong 
anti-incumbency as benefiting the out-of-power UDF.  "We think we 
will get 17 seats, at least 15," said Pandalam Sudhakaran, a former 
Congress minister who is campaigning for former UN Under-Secretary 
General and Congress candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi 
Tharoor.  Many journalists expressed similar expectations for the 
Congress.  Their predictions ranged from 12-15 for the UDF, with the 
Congress getting 9-12 seats of that total.  The Congress is 
contesting in 17 constituencies leaving two to its ally the Indian 
Union Muslim League (IUML) and one to the Kerala Congress (M), a 
party that split off from the Congress in 1979.  On the LDF side, 
the CPM is contesting in 14 constituencies, the Communist Party of 
India (CPI) in 4, Kerala Congress (J) in one, with one seat 
contested by an independent candidate aligned with the left front. 
 
 
CPM on the defensive 
--------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) Education Minister M.A. Baby's overview of the state's 
political scene made clear the CPM's defensive posture.  According 
to Baby, the state's anti-CPM press is using the bribery scandal 
involving the CPM's state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan (ref C) to 
pillory the party.  "We are trying to correct the perception, but 
the newspaper campaign is bound to have some impact," he said.  Baby 
also admitted that the pastoral letter sent by the Catholic bishops 
(ref B) urging their parishioners to vote against the CPM could 
affect his party's prospects.  Baby believes that the CPM's 
opponents are willing to use anything to discredit the party.  He 
seemed resigned, saying "all's fair in love and war. Politics is 
mostly war with very little love."  In Palakkad, a local journalist 
observed that the morale of the CPM is very low compared to past 
elections. 
 
CPM turns to Muslim voters to revive its fortunes 
------------ 
 
¶4. (SBU)  According to many observers, Kerala's CPM suffers from a 
lack of allies who can deliver votes.   The CPM's major ally, the 
CPI, has little support outside of the trade unions.  The Kerala 
Congress (J) is weakened after several Catholic bishops stopped 
backing the party.  The Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Janata 
Dal (S) are depleted by infighting.  In contrast, Congress and the 
 
CHENNAI 00000112  002 OF 003 
 
 
UDF can rely on the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which is 
still a dominant force, to deliver Muslim votes and the Kerala 
Congress (M) remains popular in Central Kerala. 
 
¶5. (SBU) The CPM's tactical decision to use the controversial, but 
popular, Islamic leader, Abdul Nasser Madhani (ref C), is widely 
seen as an effort to break the IUML's "monopoly" on Muslim votes and 
attract them to the LDF.  Some journalists believed that the CPM has 
promised Madhani's People's Democratic Party (PDP) full-fledged 
membership in the LDF at some later point.  The media storm 
following Madhani's appearance on stage with CPM officials forced 
the CPM to back-pedal on its relationship with the PDP.  Baby 
treaded carefully when discussing the PDP:  he said the CPM had 
unilaterally accepted the support of the PDP and was in no way 
offering its endorsement to the PDP.  In addition to playing the PDP 
card, the CPM has effectively mobilized its own popular leaders from 
the Muslim community in an effort to target this important voting 
bloc.  Muslims comprise 24% of the state's electorate, and are 
considered crucial to success in more than half of the state's 
parliamentary constituencies. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Congress's ally IUML appears to be losing its vise-like 
grip on Kerala's Muslim voters.  Several journalists remarked that 
this election could be the first where Kerala's Muslim vote splits. 
In addition to the CPM's strong play via the PDP, there are several 
other smaller Muslim parties looking to pick off votes from the 
IUML's vote bloc.  At the same time, the CPM's enlistment of the 
controversial PDP may lead to a backlash from those Christian and 
Hindu voters who would normally be aligned with the CPM.  As a 
result, the CPM may actually experience a net loss, gaining the 
support of the PDP's supporters at the expense of losing from the 
larger pool of moderate voters from the Christian and Hindu 
communities. 
 
India's relations with Israel and the U.S. 
------------ 
 
¶7. (SBU) Although Indian elections normally center on local issues, 
the CPM's election rhetoric is infused with foreign affairs.  The 
CPM derides India's defense relations with Israel and its strategic 
partnership with the United States.  Loudspeakers decked with the 
CPM's hammer and sickle flags blast epithets at the Congress party, 
calling its leaders "slaves of imperialism" and "stooges of the 
U.S."  On the streets of one town we heard an announcement blaring 
that "a dollar spent on buying Israeli weapons is a dollar spent on 
its war against the Palestinians."   Journalists in 
Thiruvananthapuram told us that Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor 
has been facing intense media scrutiny of his past writings, some of 
which commend Israel.  Local CPM leaders have portrayed Tharoor as 
an "American agent." 
K.V. Thomas, Congress's candidate in Cochin, is under fire for 
having presented a memento to a former Israeli Prime Minister years 
ago during his visit to India.  In attacking Congress for its close 
ties to the United States, the CPM is portraying the United States 
as anti-Muslim in hopes of pulling in Muslim voters.  The CPM also 
refers to the U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation agreement. 
Interestingly, CPM references to the deal indicate that the party 
would only amend the deal; the CPM does not say it would entirely 
scrap it. 
 
Kerala Congress leaders resent New Delhi's dictates 
--------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) The Congress party's traditionally New Delhi-centered 
decision-making has been out of sync with local sentiments in 
Kerala.  For example, Shashi Tharoor's candidacy has raised the 
hackles of many prominent Congress leaders in Thiruvananthapuram. 
Journalists pointed out that many Youth Congress leaders were 
disappointed with Tharoor's selection and have yet to become fully 
active in his campaign.  Disappointment over the refusal of the 
Cochin ticket to a widely popular young Congress leader, Hibi Eden, 
 
CHENNAI 00000112  003 OF 003 
 
 
fueled a negative reaction so strong that the leader of the state's 
Congress party distanced himself from it. 
 
All politics is local 
------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) Our visit to Kerala made clear that although the elections 
are national, they amount to a vast conglomeration of intensely 
local contests.  We found that at the village level people had 
vastly different opinions on what was important in the election. 
Local development, the presence of independents and rebels in the 
fray, and caste/community issues were all at play.  For example, we 
watched local villagers complaining to a candidate about water 
hyacinth which clogged canals making them impassable and forcing the 
villagers into the back breaking work of carting their rice harvest 
over land.  Caste was the issue in Thiruvananthapuram, where many 
talked about the BSP candidate who will not win but might affect the 
race by drawing votes from the predominant Nadar caste to which he 
belongs.  Locals at a road side tea shop in Chalakkudy expressed 
their support for a philanthropist who has built free toilets for 
the community's poor and is running as an independent candidate. 
Many at the tea shop expressed disgust with the state's CPM 
government, while questions about the UPA in New Delhi drew more 
neutral reactions. 
 
Communists and Congress back together again? 
-------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) CPM leader Baby and CPI National Secretary D. Raja told us 
that the non-Congress, non-BJP parties' chances are brightening. 
According to Baby, the parties will sit together after the polls and 
forge a common minimum program "which should not be too difficult." 
According to Baby, the CPM has amended its party program to enable 
the party to be part of a coalition government should the situation 
warrant it. He clarified that the CPM has not offered its support to 
the Congress in the post-poll scenario, but it would accept support 
from the Congress, if necessary.  Congress leaders, on the other 
hand, believe that the left parties will have no alternative to 
supporting the Congress after the elections. 
 
BJP stands alone 
-------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) The BJP is fighting it out alone in Kerala.  Its best 
hopes are in Thiruvananthapuram in the contest against Congress's 
Shashi Tharoor.  The four-cornered contest between the UDF, LDF, the 
BJP and the BSP gives the BJP candidate a faint hope of winning the 
seat.  For the most part, however, the BJP candidates are not 
campaigning very seriously in Kerala. 
 
Congress looks to solid gains 
-------------- 
 
 
¶12. (SBU) Comment:  Local issues and concerns are driving Kerala's 
elections, and they are driving them in favor of the Congress party 
and its allies.  Attitudes toward the state's ruling CPM, its scams 
and squabbles, its alliances and patronage, all seem to be key 
issues rather than national politics.  In a state where 
anti-incumbency is the rule, voter ire is directed at the state 
rather than the central government.  The CPM is clearly gambling on 
splitting the Muslim vote in Kerala.  Pulling off some surprise 
victories in Muslim-dominated key constituencies could help it stop 
the bleeding in this electoral cycle.  But it may also lead to a 
possible backlash against the CPM's Muslim focus by Hindus and 
Christians, which will benefit the UDF, or possibly even the BJP, in 
the long run.  On the eve of voters going to the polls the consensus 
is that Congress will pick up at least ten seats in Kerala, likely 
more.  End comment. 
 
SIMKIN