LEFT, RIGHT AND THE RHETORIC OF CHANGE

The CPI(M), the Congress and the BJP offer competing visions for Kerala

- NIRMAL JOVIAL

In the early 1980s, long before he became Kerala's leader of the opposition, V.D. Satheesan entered a political contest almost by chance. A first-year degree student at the time, he was asked by the Congress-affiliated Kerala Students Union to step in as a substitute candidate for the arts club secretary post. The original nominee—a violinist student leader—had failed to appear on nomination day.

The post usually went to artists or musicians. Satheesan's entry had one rival hosting a celebratory treat in the college canteen, as though the election had already been won.

But, as the campaign progressed, Satheesan began forging an emotional connect with voters through his speeches, often leaving sections of the audience teary-eyed. He also mocked what he described as the violent politics of the CPI(M)-affiliated Students Federation of India, using playful twists on film dialogues. The rhetoric struck a chord. Satheesan won—one of the first victories in a long political career.

Four decades later, the stage is larger but the method looks familiar. Travelling across Kerala with the Congress-led United Democratic Front's Puthuyuga Yatra ahead of the assembly polls, Satheesan is once again relying on relentless campaigning and carefully-crafted speeches—sometimes emotional, at other times peppered with Gen-Z slang—to build momentum for himself, the Congress and the UDF.

'Puthuyuga' literally means a 'new age'. Yet Satheesan and the UDF are not alone in invoking the promise of the new.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, after a decade in power, is projecting his vision of Nava Keralam (New Kerala) and seeking a third term for the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front to realise it. Meanwhile, state BJP president and former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar often repeats his slogan 'Marathathu ini maarum'—'that which remained unchanged will now change'.