By Arun Lakshman
Thiruvananthapuram, April 30 (IANS) In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, after the last day for the withdrawal of nominations, three serious candidates were left in the fray in the stronghold of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), Muvattupuzha in Ernakulam.
They were Union Minister of State for Law P.C. Thomas contesting for the first time since 1989, when he was first elected from the constituency as a NDA candidate; the CPI-M’s P.M. Ismail and Jose K. Mani from the Kerala Congress (Mani).
Political pundits and observers, including the BJP, were sure of the result, for the seat had traditionally returned UDF candidates and that too with huge margins. (The Muvattupuzha seat, incidentally, is not there anymore. Following delimitation, it has been merged into the Idukki, Kottayam and Ernakulam seats.)
P.C. Thomas had won with the highest margin in Kerala from the constituency but now the situation had changed. He was contesting as a NDA candidate from the Indian Federal Democratic Party (IFDP), which he had just floated.
The fight was between the CPI(M)-led LDF and the Congress led UDF candidate with PM Ismail and Jose K Mani entering the fray, with the latter the hot favourite for the seat.
An array of senior leaders reached the constituency which has a high ratio of Christians with Hindus and Muslims also not in negligible volumes.
P.C. Thomas, son of late P.T. Chacko – former home minister of Kerala, was a popular leader in the constituency. Due a fight with then leader of the Kerala Congress, K.M. Mani who was then a revenue minister in the A.K. Antony government of Kerala, he had to quit the Kerala Congress.
Being a sitting Lok Sabha MP, the BJP leadership found an opportunity and through the late Scaria Thomas, who was a two-term MP from Kottayam for the Kerala Congress (Mani), the then BJP leader and Union Minister Pramod Mahajan lured Thomas into the NDA.
P.C. Thomas and Scaria Thomas had then floated the IFDP with the support of late Mohan Dilkar (MP of Daman and Diu) and don- turned-politician, Pappu Yadav.
The IFDP was made an ally of the National Democratic Alliance and in 2003, P.C. Thomas was sworn in as Union Minister of State for Law and Justice in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government. Arun Jaitley was then the Union Minister for Law and Justice in the Vajpayee cabinet.
The 2004 Lok Sabha elections saw a high powered campaign and the UDF neglected P.C. Thomas as the seat was a sure bet for the Congress led front given the high volume of the Christian community in Muvattupuzha.
P.C. Thomas was undeterred given his excellent rapport with the constituency, the grassroot connect of being a six term MP and the rapport with all the Church heads. With the ‘India Shining’ campaign of Pramod Mahajan striking a chord with the voters, after the first round, there was a feeling that Thomas was also in the race.
However the senior campaigners and backroom boys of the BJP were not enthused and expected that Thomas would finish a distant third but the RSS leadership was determined and J. Nandakumar, then RSS Kerala Saha Prantha Pracharak was the man behind the show. He is currently the head of the RSS think tank Prajna Pravah and based out of New Delhi.
When the election campaign reached the third and fourth rounds, P.C. Thomas was inching his way up and Jose K. Mani’s camp of the UDF which had neglected him suddenly understood that things were not that easy and the senior leader was striking a chord with the voters.
In fact what helped Thomas and the BJP was the basic study of the constituency and proper homework as to how they could reach out to different strata of the society to get the votes. The team working diligently for Thomas could understand that the Christian community at large did not have any major issue with the BJP and they highlighted the Vajpayee government at the Centre and the possibility of Thomas returning to the Union cabinet.
The strategy paid off and P.C. Thomas won the seat by a slender margin of 529 votes. The votes polled by the three major candidates were: Jose K. Mani (Kerala Congress-M) 2,09,880 votes, P.M. Ismail (CPI-M) 2,55,882 votes and P.C. Thomas (IFDP) 2,56,411 votes.
Jose K. Mani, who was banking on the Christian vote bank, was a distant third, and the CPI-M candidate, P.M. Ismail gave a tough fight to Thomas, thanks to the organisational machinery of the CPI-M.
The victory of Thomas is a classic example of how the Christian community would vote for a leader who has acceptability, credibility and mass appeal. If the present Kerala leadership of the BJP tries to pull in such leaders, victory may not be a distant dream for the saffron party in Kerala.
–IANS
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