Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's incumbent Chief Minister Oomen Chandy was pleased to see his supporters turn out in their hundreds of thousands on Saturday in his home constituency of Puthupally as the southern state began the first of a three-phase polling to vote in a new state government.
But while Chandy is most likely to scrape through given that voter turn out was over 70 per cent, the same cannot be said for the other candidates of the Congress-led United Democratic Front, who face the wrath of an increasingly disillusioned electorate in the six southern districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Idukki and Kottayam.
Nine members of Chandy's cabinet are in the fray, as the fate of his government hangs in the balance. The first phase of polling, which took place in 59 assembly constituencies, began on a desultory note with polling staying stagnant at less than 40 per cent till noon, only picking up towards the end of the day.
At the close of the day's polling, with the Election Commission still counting, the polling was pegged at 67 per cent.
Analysts said it could rise by another two to three per cent in an election that saw the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP ) also put up its candidates in a majority of the seats in the region.
"It was much lower than the normal eighty per cent and over that marks polling in Kerala," said E. Somanath, who heads the popular daily Malayala Manorama in the capital. He said that during his tour of the polling booths in Thiruvananthapuram, the ruling UDF had been clearly unable to ensure voters got out of their homes to the polling stations.
"This is in itself a clear sign that the UDF has turned off its voters, who despite Chandy's track record in development work, are both upset and confused by the shifting political stance of the party."
He said the UDF had made so many U-turns that the voter did not know what to think. The Congress split down the middle when its old warhorse K. Karunakaran, a trenchant critic of the previous Antony government and equally dismissive of the incumbent Chandy dispensation, set up his own party, the Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran).
He allied with the opposition left parties and helped them sweep the recent local polls as well as played a part in the humiliating defeat of the Congress in a recent by-election in the capital. Today, Karunakaran is back in the UDF fold.
The low voter turn out could therefore spell the death-knell for the Congress.
By the same chalk, committed Left cadres were mobilised in usual military fashion. Of the total of 409 candidates in the fray in the first phase of polling, the fate of CPI-M Leaders M.A. Baby (Kundrara), P.K. Gurudasan (Kollam), Republican Socialist Party leader and Rajya Sabha member N.K. Premachandran (Chavara) will also be decided.
But they may have nothing to worry about. In the capital Thiruvananthapuram's 14 assembly segments, the Left Democratic Front could turn the tables on the Congress which won ten out of 14 the last time, leaving the Congress with as few as four this time, Somanath said.
Elections were largely peaceful. Barring minor disputes between rival sides in some booths, no incidents were reported from anywhere, police said.
