When a winning playbook travels: Why Congress’s Karnataka–Telangana strategy is faltering in Kerala

The gap between promise and delivery is not merely administrative, it's political. In most electoral contexts, such inconsistencies remain in the periphery but in Kerala, they move to the centre of the discourse.

“Kerala sir, 100% literacy sir!” is a line often delivered humorously, captures a deeper political reality: Kerala Questions”

With literacy comes the ability to understand and reason, hence Kerala questions. It interrogates promises, tests narratives, and audits political claims with a level of scrutiny that few electoral terrains in India consistently exhibit.

And that, perhaps, is where the Congress party’s otherwise successful campaign playbook in the south further refined in Karnataka and Telangana is being countered by resistance in Kerala.

Across recent victories, the Congress has relied on a structured four-stage approach.

First, create a perception of anti-incumbency, second, corner the government through sustained allegations, third, deploy identity-driven narratives to consolidate vote blocs aimed at minority communities, and finally, introduce a set of expansive welfare guarantees designed to dominate voter imagination.

In Kerala, this playbook was executed with discipline.

For over an year, leaders consistently reinforced the idea that there was strong anti-incumbency against the government led by Pinarayi Vijayan despite limited evidence of widespread public dissatisfaction.

This persisted even while the administration continued to be credited for infrastructure push and welfare delivery. The attempt was to shape public perception through repetition.

The second phase followed with a series of allegations that have ranged from procurement controversies to governance-related claims. However, many of these struggled to sustain institutional or judicial backing, thereby, diluting their long-term credibility.

The third stage introduced political narratives around alleged alignments and “deals,” aimed at triggering cross-community consolidation.

And finally, came the guarantees like free KSRTC travel for women, Rs 25 lakh health insurance, and Rs 3,000 welfare pensions. These are electoral promised that have been proven electorally effective elsewhere.

On paper, the architecture to counter the incumbent with a good record is robust. But, in Kerala, it is encountering a different variable altogether, that is, the people. Here, the people do not passively absorb narratives, they interrogate.

When narrative meets public audit

The first visible strain in this strategy emerged around the Wayanad rehabilitation issue which is now evolving into a credibility test for the opposition.

Following the tragedy, Congress leaders and affiliated networks mobilised funds from the public, promising large-scale rehabilitation, including the construction of over 100 homes.

As the campaign entered its final phase, questions began to intensify on how much money was raised, through which channels, and what had been delivered on the ground? An initial response attempted to project progress through a late-stage stone-laying ceremony, along with assertions that work has commenced, and repeated claims of ongoing execution.

But sustained questioning from both media and the citizens forced them to spell out a more definitive clarification that a significant portion of the funds had been used for land acquisition that has left little room for actual construction.

This gap between promise and delivery is not merely administrative, it is political. In most electoral contexts, such inconsistencies remain in the periphery but in Kerala, they move to the centre of the discourse.

The problem with big promises in a questioning electorate

A similar pattern is emerging in the public response to Congress’s welfare guarantees.

The promise of free KSRTC travel for women, for instance, is being evaluated against the financial health of the public transport system. With rising fuel costs and a corporation that only recently stabilised after years of distress, voters are asking whether such a measure is fiscally sustainable.

In a recent television interaction, a 70-year-old woman captured this sentiment succinctly, questioning how free travel could be sustained when fuel prices continue to rise and when KSRTC itself had struggled to pay salaries and pensions until recently. Her concern was simple yet pointed: would such a policy push the system back into crisis?

The Rs 25 lakh health insurance guarantee is being examined through the lens of Kerala’s existing public healthcare model. The question is not whether expanded coverage is desirable, but whether such a large-scale promise would strain state finances or disrupt a functioning system.

Even the Rs 3,000 welfare pension commitment is being viewed through historical memory. During the Congress-led government’s previous tenure it struggled to disburse significantly smaller pension amounts consistently.

The natural question then follows: What structural change now would make this promise credible?

When a playbook meets its limits

What is unfolding in Kerala is not a failure of strategy, but a test of its adaptability. The Congress playbook although effective in contexts where scale, repetition, and emotional resonance shape voter behaviour, relies on narrative momentum. Kerala introduces a counter-force, that is, continuous public audit.

Here, voters do not just respond to messaging, they interrogate its viability, compare it with past performance, and demand clarity on execution. And when answers are insufficient, even a well-constructed narrative begins to wither.

The larger lesson

Kerala’s current electoral moment offers a broader lesson for political strategy in India.

Campaign models are not universally transferable. What succeeds in one state is driven by its specific socio-economic conditions and voter behaviour and may not translate seamlessly to another.

In Kerala, literacy manifests not just as an educational outcome, but as political behaviour. Voters question, challenge, and probe in ways that can disrupt even the most carefully designed campaigns.

The Congress campaign is discovering this in real time. Because in Kerala, the familiar line holds true, not as humour, but as political fact: “Kerala sir, 100% literacy sir.” And that literacy comes with questions.

S Sruti, the author is an Assistant Professor with Department of Political Science at Shyam Lal College (Evening) University of Delhi.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)