In Kerala, a shift in social basis of voting Christians, Muslims, Dalits and OBCs backed LDF in the election, contributing to its massive victory

Shreyas Sardesai

The traditional social basis of voting in Kerala underwent some important changes this time, contributing to the larger-than-expected victory of the LDF over the UDF. A modest but significant shift was noticed among the Muslim and Christian communities, who constitute 27% and 18% of the State’s population, respectively. While the two communities have traditionally voted for the UDF and continued to do so this time as well, they also warmed up to the LDF at the expense of smaller players, giving the LDF a further edge over the UDF.

According to Lokniti-CSDS’s post-poll survey data, nearly two-fifths (39%) of Muslims and Christians voted for the LDF this time, as opposed to about one-thirds (35%) in the 2016 election. The UDF, on the other hand, got the same level of support among Muslims (58%) and an increased share among Christians (57%). Support for the UDF, however, considerably declined among the two minority communities in comparison to the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Back then, at least two-thirds of Muslims and Christians had voted for it. For the LDF, the vote gains compared to the Lok Sabha poll were nine and 14 percentage points, respectively.

In regional terms, while Muslim support for the UDF this time continued to be quite high (at about two-thirds) in the Malabar region (an area mostly contested by the UDF constituent — the IUML), it fell drastically to less than half in the Cochin region, way below the levels recorded in 2016. It is here that the LDF scored over the UDF among Muslims.

Interestingly, all of the gain among Christians for the LDF and the UDF came at the expense of the BJP and other players. The BJP, which had secured around 10% of the votes from the Christian community in the 2016 election, managed only about 2% this time. This decline is significant given that the party had actively raised the spectre of ‘love jihad’ and conversions to woo Christian voters in the run-up to the election and the fact that the BJP’s top leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had held discussions with several church leaders to find a solution to the long-standing feud between Orthodox and Jacobite sects of the Malankara Syrian Church. However, none of that seems to have worked.

For the shift of Christian and Muslim votes towards the LDF this time, we found that there was a clear class aspect to it. Support for the LDF among lower-class and poor Muslims increased from 35% to 46%, and among lower class and poor Christians from 36% to 44%.

As far as the majority Hindu community is concerned, its voting pattern remained more or less unchanged compared to the 2016 election, with the LDF, the UDF and the NDA drawing almost similar levels of support as they had done the last time, but for a slight uptick in support for the LDF. However, there were some significant caste-wise variations that bear mention — the most significant of them being with respect to the Scheduled Caste or Dalits. Dalit support for the LDF increased massively this time to over two thirds (69%), an 18-percentage-point rise compared to the 2016 election. The BJP saw a 16 percentage point decline in Dalit support.

The other major area of gain among Hindus for the LDF came from the non-Ezahava OBCs, whose support for the LDF climbed from 49% to 61%, and this was largely at the expense of the UDF. The Ezhavas, who have traditionally supported the LDF, continued to do so this time as well. The BJP also made some gains among Ezhavas, which seems to have come at the cost of the UDF. For the UDF, the only significant gains came from the Nair community. The front managed to net about two-fifths of their support as opposed to one-fifth in 2016. Nairs and other upper castes were, in fact, the only communities among whom the LDF did not perform well.

The author is a Research Associate at Lokniti-CSDS, Delhi