What the winner must learn from the loser in Kerala: No leader is inevitable

The triumph of the Congress-led United Democratic Front is matched successful strength and extent by the decision of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front successful Kerala. The winners person an contiguous acquisition to gully from the loser: that Kerala is characteristically disapproving of an über-leader who outshines his ain enactment and keeps the spotlight firmly connected himself. The outgoing Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had made this predetermination each astir himself. The tagline of the LDF run was “Who Else, but LDF,” with Mr. Vijayan arsenic its sole face, looming successful imposingly ample hoardings crossed the State. The UDF campaign, by contrast, was a teamwork of unprecedented synergy among its leaders — a information that each of them underscored aft the victory. The UDF and its supporters indispensable present defy the temptation to imitate the Pinarayi exemplary of leadership.

Strikingly astatine likelihood with Left tradition, its run — overmuch similar its authorities implicit the past 10 years — revolved astir Mr. Vijayan’s personality, leaving small country for the CPI(M)’s ain long-held interior processes of corporate decision-making. No further grounds is required than the information that astatine slightest six elder enactment leaders near the CPI(M) and contested with the UDF’s enactment successful this election; 3 of them won. It is besides evident that CPI(M) workers switched sides and voted for the UDF successful ample numbers, arsenic the outcomes successful enactment strongholds — including immoderate successful Kannur territory — marque clear. Mr. Vijayan himself trailed successful the aboriginal rounds of counting successful his ain constituency, a enactment bastion. The degeneration mounting into the LDF truthful unsettled its ain sympathisers that Malayalam writer K. Satchidanandan — a lifelong fellow-traveller of the Left — said publically that helium wished the LDF to suffer powerfulness this time. In the end, the assertion of inevitability astir Mr. Vijayan is the azygous astir important origin that did the LDF in. A defining diagnostic of LDF regularisation historically has been the party’s power implicit the government. The centralisation of powerfulness successful the Chief Minister implicit the past 10 years weakened the party’s mediatory relation successful authorities and governance.