KASARAGOD: Somashekhara J S, the Congress panchayat president of Enmakaje, is heaving a sigh of relief.
The Manjeshwar assembly election -- in which IUML's A K M Ashraf defeated BJP state president K Surendran by 745 votes -- was about proving his mettle as a Congress satrap in the border panchayat surrounded by Hindutva politics.
For the BJP, Enmakaje was crucial to Surendran winning in Manjeshwar. It has the largest population of Hindu voters and gives it the biggest lead -- around 2,288 votes -- over the UDF among the eight panchayats.
The party's ministers and MLAs from Karnataka camped in the panchayat for three months specifically persuading the Hindu voters of the Congress and CPM to vote for the BJP. The panchayat-wise break-up of votes proves that the BJP swayed a lot of Congress and the LDF voters in Enmakaje but was just not enough.
The panchayat has around 13,000 Hindu voters, 4,000 Muslim voters, and 300 Christian voters. "We worked hard to get the votes of 10,000 Hindus. It was tough but we tried," said Udaya Chettiyar, the BJP's mandalam president of Enmakaje panchayat.
The BJP got 8,772 votes and widened its lead over the UDF to 4,322 votes from 2,288 votes in the 2019 byelection. "It is a big achievement but it was not enough," said Chettiyar.
Enmakaje is the only panchayat in Kasaragod and Manjeshwar constituencies with a Congress president. Somashekhara said BJP ministers and leaders had been targetting the Congress voters in Enmakaje for years now.
"Before the election, I was approached by RSS and BJP leaders in Karnataka to the party," he said.
Another panchayat that disrupted the BJP's plan was Puthige, a small panchayat controlled by the CPM. It expected the Hindu voters of the LDF would jump ship to the BJP. "But we did not get enough votes in Puthige either," said Chettiyar.
In the 2019 byelection, the BJP had a lead of 434 votes over the UDF in Puthige. In 2021, its lead increased to 742 votes.
BJP's former district president V Raveendran said the party targetted to get 10,000 votes in four panchayats -- Mangalpady, Paivalike, Kumbla, and Enmakaje.
The party got 9,583 votes in Mangalpady, 9,227 votes in Paivalike, 9,556 votes in Kumbla, and 8,772 votes in Enmakaje panchayat -- falling short of the target by 417 votes to 1,228 votes.
The party did not fall short for want of effort. "No other party could claim to have worked hard as we did. Except for Paivalike, there just was not enough voters to woo," he said.
Muslims take the left lane
Yet, Ashraf's victory margin was down to 745 votes from 7,923 votes M C Kamaruddin got in the 2019 byelection. There are two reasons for that, said CPM leader V P P Mustafa, who was the poll manager for LDF candidate V V Rameshan.
One, the rising popularity of the LDF among Muslims, and two, the BJP ran buses and brought in the maximum number of non-resident voters from Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Shivamogga, and Mumbai. "IUML does the same every election but this time it did not do but BJP did," he said.
In Mangalpady panchayat -- the citadel of the IUML -- the UDF was expecting a lead of 7,000-9,000 votes over BJP, depending on the worst and best-case scenarios. But the UDF got a lead of only 5,801 votes.
At the same time, the LDF polled 6,309 votes. "We usually get around 4,000 to 4,500 votes," said Mustafa.
Asked for the reason, he said Muslims, particularly women and Urdu-speaking Muslims, regarded chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan as a hero. "We campaigned in both BJP-dominated areas and in Muslim-dominated areas. The acceptance we got in Muslim areas was encouraging," he said.
A UDF leader said a few local Congress leaders tried to swing around 5,000 party votes to the BJP in Meenja, Vorkady, Kumbla, and Manjeshwar panchayat. "That is why Mullappally (Ramachandran) took anticipatory bail and tried to blame the LDF after polling. But the reality was they could not transfer even 500 votes," he said.
With the BJP breathing down the neck of the UDF with every passing election, will Manjeshwar ever fall in its kitty? "For the BJP, it is a long process," said Raveendran of the BJP. In this election, he said, around 83,000 Hindu votes and 83,000 Muslim votes were polled and the BJP got around 65,000 votes. "We will come back again with a stronger campaign," he said.
Mustafa of the CPM said two narrow victory margins for the IUML would lead to the consolidation of Muslim votes in favour of the UDF in future elections. "As of now, 30% of the CPM's members in Manjeshwar are Muslims. In other panchayats such as Trikaripur and Padna where the IUML is strong, our Muslim membership is only 5%," he said.
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But the space for secular politics is shrinking in Manjeshwar because both the IUML and the BJP harp only on religious identities. "This time we held on to our 2019 vote share. But it will become difficult if the BJP and the IUML continue with the communal campaigns during elections," he said.