Kerala election: Five reasons why UDF lost the battle to LDF

Thiruvanathapuram: The result of Kerala Assembly election came as a huge setback for United Democratic Front with Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy taking responsibility of the humiliating defeat and calling it 'unexpected'. 

The stunned Chief Minister told the media that that party did not expect this defeat and it was a major setback for them.

With the Left alliance crossing half-way mark in Kerala, we take a look at some of the factors that led to UDF's rout in the state assembly polls:

Kerala, otherwise known as the literate and digital state, was accused by the opposition parties of lacking behind in case of development and other areas during Chandy's tenure as chief minister. 

While zeroing in on party candidates for the assembly election poll, a clash erupted between Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee President, VM Sudheeran and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. On the one hand where Sudheeran repeatedly demanded that tainted minister should be excluded from the candidates' list, Chandy was set on his decision that all of these candidates be nominated.

There's no doubt that there was nothing new in the campaign run by UDF, it is also true that the corruption scandals, which surfaced during Chandy's regime and the government's inability to tackle it, clearly played the spoilsport in the assembly election. 

One way of refurbishing the image of Congress was to keep away serial aspirants who had contested four previous elections and yet failed to bring fruitful result, with VM Sudheeran volunteering for it openly. However, at Chandhy's behest, the party chose to field them in the polls, resulting in accentuating the slide.

In addition to lackluster governance, Chandy's 5-year in the office was dogged by scams and scandals which involved names of some of the key leaders. So much so that two Cabinet ministers were even forced to resign following court strictures after their names appeared in scams and graft. If this was not enough, 72-year-old Chandy, a popular leader himself, faced the heat as his name appeared in the Solar scam, a topic, that dominated the political scenario in Kerala throughout the year.

State government's failure to ensure safety of women is said to be another factor for UDF's defeat in the election. The state police's failure to nab the killer in Jisha case who was dubbed as Kerala’s Nirbhaya (The crime is referred as 'Kerala's Nirbhaya' for its unnerving similarities to the 2012 Delhi gangrape of a young Delhi student on a moving bus) added to the factors.