Predictably, the assembly election scene is warming up, matching with the summer’s rising heat. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi in West Bengal and Home Minister Amit Shah in Tamil Nadu and Kerala states campaigning for the BJP on Sunday, the next few weeks are bound to be filled with both suspense and surprises.
With the shift of a powerful regional entity, the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) from the BJP side to the Congress bandwagon in Assam, the fight for the assembly seats in the state has acquired a higher degree of suspense. With BPF holding the upper hand in the Bodoland Territorial Council region that has 15 seats in the assembly, and the party claiming to be the king-maker in successive polls in the state in the past two decades, this came as a boost to the morale of the Congress-led alliance. The promise by the Congress to grant a 50 per cent reservation in jobs for women is another significant bait. Clearly, the BJP will now have to fight every inch to retain power in Assam.
West Bengal is still Mamata Banerjee’s own fiefdom, also going by the confidence with which she has announced the list of her party candidates for over 290 seats in the assembly in one single go. There’s a noticeable shift in the Trinamool Congress party’s strategy to win the elections. The party has subtly reduced the importance it gave to minority Muslims – a major vote bank for the TMC till now – and the new attempt is to woo women in a more engaging manner.
In Tamil Nadu, despite the AIADMK announcing new welfare steps to woo the voters, the DMK remains in a pole position. The DMK and the Congress have finalized seat sharing and the Left too would be part of its alliance that had won the LS polls in 2019 in all but one constituency. The announcement of VK Sasikala, after her return from jail, that she would not enter politics and wished well for Amma’s party meant the AIADMK will stand as one in the assembly polls.
While Puducherry might go the BJP’s way if pre-poll surveys are any proof, Kerala will see a fight between equals. The leftist bastion might either see a return of the Congress-led United Democratic Front to power or more probably a retention of power by CPI-M strongman Pinarayi Vijayan heading the Left Democratic Front. Kerala had never re-elected a party to power in successive polls; the pendulum could swing either way.