The Congress in Kerala has been counting its chickens before they hatch. For several weeks, senior leaders have been positioning for the Chief Minister’s post, assuming that the United Democratic Front (UDF) would win the Assembly elections on May 4. Just as the party sought to put a lid on the unseemly public display of personal ambition, its most important ally muddied the waters. Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, State president of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), publicly backed V.D. Satheesan for Chief Minister, citing exit polls of dubious authority, and urging the Congress’s central leadership to let public sentiment guide the choice. The blowback was immediate. Sectarian leaders who have been whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment were quick to claim that the Congress and the UDF were in the IUML’s stranglehold. The charge has a history to feed on. The IUML’s maximalist demands for seats, cabinet berths and portfolios have contributed to that impression, and are at least partly linked to rising tensions between the Muslim community on the one side and Hindus and Christians on the other — a realignment that has proved beneficial for the BJP. The UDF may have barely stalled the disintegration of its social base in this election, if at all. The IUML’s public posturing is a stinging reminder of what to avoid if the Front is to remain viable in the face of rapid social change.

The conventions of Kerala’s coalition politics are clear and have held for decades. A single party rarely wins an absolute majority; the partners of a Front collectively win those numbers. The leading party — Congress in the UDF, CPI-M in the Left Democratic Front — elects its legislature party leader, who is then accepted by the Front as Chief Minister. There is no record of that decorum being broken by any junior partner in either Front. Neither Front contested this election with a declared chief ministerial candidate; even the sitting Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, was not named as the LDF’s CM candidate. In both Fronts, the Chief Minister has emerged through a two-step process involving newly elected MLAs and the central leadership of the party concerned. In the UDF and LDF, popular leaders have often missed the top post simply because there are always multiple contenders but only one post. The IUML would serve itself, the culture of coalition politics and the social fabric of Kerala far better by respecting that decorum. The Congress high command, for its part, must demonstrate that manoeuvres that embarrass the party carry a cost, not a reward.