Palakkad bypoll in Kerala: Political duelling and controversies animate silent campaigning on the eve of byelection-OxBig News Network

Election officers transporting polling materials to Victoria College, Palakkad, on November 19, 2024 for the bypoll.
| Photo Credit: K K Mustafah

The day of the silent campaigning for the Assembly bypoll in Palakkad in Kerala seemed anything but muted on Tuesday (November 19, 2024). 

Even as the countdown clock to Wednesday’s polling day ticked, there appeared to be no let-up in political fireworks, controversies and public sniping. 

Voters in Palakkad woke up on Tuesday to newspaper advertisements spotlighting the allegedly “anti-Muslim” political statements and social media posts by former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson-turned-Congress leader Sandeep Varier.

Notably, the mouthpieces of two influential Sunni Muslim organisations carried the Left Democratic Front (LDF)-sponsored advertisement on their respective front pages. 

The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) has moved the Palakkad District Collector, the Chief Electoral Officer, against the LDF’s “communally divisive” propaganda. It alleged that the advertisement had appeared without the electoral media monitoring committee’s sanction.

Mr. Varier, who is campaigning for Congress’ Rahul Mamkootathil in Palakkad, said the LDF’s “unlawful” advertisement proved that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and the BJP were on the same page regarding creating communal divisions for electoral dividends.

Congress leader Shafi Parambil, MP, said the CPI(M) had attempted a similar last-minute political ploy to incite communal passions during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Vadakara. However, it backfired at the polling booth.

Ads purely political: Rajesh

Local Self-Governments Minister M.B. Rajesh denied the Congress’ imputation. He said the LDF had placed the notice in all newspapers, and the advertisement was purely political. 

With the BJP emerging as a powerful third force in Palakkad, the LDF and the UDF reportedly reckoned that the three-cornered contest could be dazzlingly close and that minority community votes could decide the elections. 

The CPI(M), the Congress and the BJP have also raised the spectre of bogus voting in Palakkad, given the supposedly significant number of people finding their way onto the voters’ list in different booths. The parties have vowed to prevent people with “double votes” from exercising their franchise in other booths.

The Centre’s alleged delay in aiding landslide-devastated Wayanad district’s rehabilitation, BJP leader V. Muraleedharan’s alleged attempt to make light of the natural disaster, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran’s alleged effort to brush away Babri Masjid issue as “a thing of the past” and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s imputation that the Indian Union Muslim League’s (IUML) State president Syed Sadikali Shihab Thangal had abandoned the party’s secular-reformist line continued to animate the political narrative in Palakkad on the bypoll eve. 

LDF’s P. Sarin, BJP’s C. Krishnakumar and Congress’ Mamkootathil popped in and out of homes in a last-minute bid to muster support.

The opposing campaigns mobilised armies of supporters to visit neighbourhoods and knock on doors, an arguably persuasive political tactic on silent campaign day.