Will Pinarayi Vijayan hit century or Congress suffer further injury?

As the anticipation of the results to the Thrikkakkara constituency by-election reaches its crescendo on Friday, the winner will trigger analyses of people’s sentiment towards each party

The by-election for the Thrikkakkara Assembly seat saw high voter turnout on May 31. While the Congress would like to keep its seat, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) would like to squeeze the Opposition party out further by adding to their comfortable majority of 99 out of the 140 Assembly seats.

Hence, the result to the by-poll to be declared on Friday assumes magnitude.

If CPM’s candidate Dr Jo Joseph manages to win the Thrikkakkara seat, it will be a feather in Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s proverbial cap. Pinarayi already holds the credit for leading LDF to a second consecutive term in Kerala in 2021, through his social engineering strategies as well as enhancing rapport with the minority communities.

But if Dr Joseph doesn’t win, it can be taken as a sign there is an anti-incumbency sentiment among masses especially since almost all top LDF leaders participated in the campaigning. And, the Left alliance’s course-correction would become difficult as the resentment over the much-hyped SilverLine semi-high-speed-rail project dominated the entire by-election campaign.

Also read: LJD to merge with JD(S) in Kerala

However, the worst off would be the Congress as Thrikkakkara was a long-held seat by the party. It would be ironic as the Congress candidate Uma Thomas is the wife of the late MLA P T Thomas, who had been elected to represent Thrikkakkara constituency multiple times.

It would also be a sign that the Congress is further weakening in Kerala, thus affecting the party’s prospects in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Congress-led United Democratic Front candidates, including Rahul Gandhi, won 19 of the 20 Lok Sabha seats from Kerala.

On the other hand, the BJP is looking towards making inroads into the Christian vote bank in the constituency by raking up 'love jihad' and 'narcotic jihad' issues and joining hands with Christian fringe groups and select church heads.

The BJP has even supported former MLA P C George, who has been twice arrested for his hate speeches against the Muslim community.

Another key outcome of the Thrikkakkara constituency by-poll would be the vote share of Kitex group-backed Twenty20 collective. Its candidate had secured over 10 per cent votes in the constituency in 2021 Assembly election. This time, Twenty20, which recently formed a new front with Aam Aadmi Party, kept off from fray and left it to the voters to decide on their votes.

Twenty20, the corporate social responsibility wing of the Kitex Group, forayed into the thick of Kerala politics when it formed the People’s Welfare Alliance with AAP earlier this month. It remains to be seen whether the 10 per cent votes gained by the Twenty20 candidate in 2021 will be distributed evenly among other parties, a chunk will be taken by just one party.

The AAP-Twenty20 alliance comes at a time when Congress had been actively courting the CSR collective for support during the by-poll campaign, and political analysts do not rule out the chances of the AAP-Twenty20 will further destabilise Congress’s footing in the state.]

In the 2021 state election, Congress's P T Thomas secured 43.82 percent votes, the CPM-backed independent candidate J Jacob got 33.32 percent votes, and BJP's S Saji got 11.34 percent votes.

The results of the May 31 by-poll will pave way for any number of interpretations and speculations.