Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09CHENNAI163
2009-05-29 02:21:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Consulate Chennai
Cable title:  

BHARAT BALLOT '09: MAY 28 SOUTHERN SNAPSHOTS: ELECTION

Tags:  PGOV PTER PHUM KDEM IN 
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RR RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDBU RUEHLH RUEHNEH RUEHPW
DE RUEHCG #0163/01 1490221
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 290221Z MAY 09
FM AMCONSUL CHENNAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2295
INFO RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 3688
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RUEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0258
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RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC
RUEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEIDN/DNI WASHINGTON DC
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENNAI 000163 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PTER PHUM KDEM IN
SUBJECT: BHARAT BALLOT '09: MAY 28 SOUTHERN SNAPSHOTS: ELECTION
ROUNDUP

Refs: A) 08 CHENNAI 326, B) CHENNAI 98, C) CHENNAI 100, D)CHENNAI

1161.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENNAI 000163

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PTER PHUM KDEM IN
SUBJECT: BHARAT BALLOT '09: MAY 28 SOUTHERN SNAPSHOTS: ELECTION
ROUNDUP

Refs: A) 08 CHENNAI 326, B) CHENNAI 98, C) CHENNAI 100, D)CHENNAI

1161.


1. (U) This report is part of a periodic series covering items of
interest in South India not featured in our other reporting. This
edition of "Southern Snapshots" covers:

-- Tamil Nadu: Parties unable to leverage the plight of Sri Lanka's
Tamils for political gain
-- Andhra Pradesh: Sops trump TVs
-- Karnataka: BJP bucks national trend and strengthens its foothold
in South India
--Kerala: Communists routed

Tamil parties bet on Sri Lanka and lose
--------------


2. (U) Some small-but-noteworthy parties in Tamil Nadu overestimated
the willingness of the electorate to abandon Congress in favor of
any party that rallied publicly and loudly to the cause of Sri
Lanka's ethnic Tamils, with Congress and its allies in the state
(the DMK and VCK) winning 28 of the state's 39 seats. S. Ramadoss's
PMK (part of Congress's national alliance until departing in April
to ally with the DMK's main opponent) is especially strong in
northern Tamil Nadu and has demonstrated a particular skill at
aligning with winning parties in the state. It also hoped to
capitalize on the anticipated sentiments of a public angry at the
plight of ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka and the unwillingness of the
Congress-and-DMK GoI to press harder for an end to the fighting. In
the event, however, the PMK failed to win any of the seven
constituencies it contested.


3. (U) The MDMK, a party with links to the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and whose raison d'etre revolves around
supporting the Sri Lankan Tamils' cause, did win one of the four
seats it contested. The party's obstreperous and oft-arrested
leader Vaiko, however, failed to win in his hometown, losing to a
first-time Congress Party candidate, Manicka Tagore.


4. (SBU) The Sri Lankan issue did seem to have traction in at least
one race, however. Union Home Minister Chidambaram (Congress Party)
squeaked out a victory in the last hour of vote-counting by a mere
3354 votes. His main opponent (from the DMK's arch-rival AIADMK)
was leading all day in the counting and at the end of the
penultimate round, Chidambaram and his team apparently stormed
angrily out of the room where the counting was taking place.

Supporters of his AIADMK opponent took this as an admission of
defeat and began celebrating the apparent victory by lighting off
firecrackers while TV channels called the election in AIADMK's
favor. Dramatically, however, Chidambaram's tally surged ahead in
the final round and he was elected after the last count, much to the
consternation of Chidambaram's opponents, some of whom alleged
fraud.


5. (SBU) Chidambaram's son (and campaign manager),Karti, told us
that Tamil groups supportive of the LTTE had targeted all the top
candidates of the Congress party, including Chidambaram, intensively
campaigning in traditional Congress constituencies. He admitted
that these efforts had hurt Congress's candidates, reducing their
margins of victory, particularly in rural areas, where the pro-LTTE
campaign enjoyed more popularity. Nonetheless, the young politico
was elated after the victory: "I told my father that we have won
the most difficult election," he said, "and we can win any future
one."

Congress subsidies trump TV sets in AP
--------------


6. (U) The Congress Party steamrolled its way through Andhra
Pradesh, winning both the national- and state-level elections, which
were held concurrently. Congress won 33 of AP's 42 parliamentary
seats (up from 29 in 2004) and 155 of its 294 state legislative
assembly seats (down from 185 in 2004). The state-level victory
makes Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy (or YSR, as he is
commonly known) the only Congress Chief Minister in the state since
1982 to be re-elected for a second consecutive term.


CHENNAI 00000163 002 OF 003



7. (U) Chandrababu Naidu, head of Congress's main challenger, the
TDP, had promised free color television sets for voters and a cash
transfer scheme of INR 2000 (USD 40) per month to each poor
household. Voters were unimpressed, however, preferring the
incumbent Congress party and YSR's record of sops, handouts, and
big-spending projects like free electricity to farmers, mammoth
irrigation projects, healthcare facilities and housing for the poor,
fee reimbursement for poor students, and reservations (quotas in
civil service jobs and university slots, for example) for
disadvantaged Muslims.


8. (U) Star power also failed to generate much heat among Andhra's
voters. Telugu-language film star Chiranjeevi and his Praja Rajyam
Party (PRP),waging their first election campaign, managed to win
only 18 seats in the state's legislative assembly and no seats in
the Lok Sabha. Given the massive publicity surrounding his
political debut, this disappointing performance (his party received
only 17 percent of the vote -- high for a normal first-timer, but
far below expectations) was a flop.

Karnataka BJP bucks national trends and strengthens its foothold in
South India
--------------


9. (U) The BJP strengthened its South India political base in
Karnataka, winning 19 of the state's 28 Lok Sabha seats, one more
than in the 2004 elections. As expected, the party did particularly
well in the northern and central districts (ref D). The only
surprise was the BJP's strong showing in Bangalore and coastal
Karnataka, where some had predicted that attacks in the area by
extremist Hindu groups on churches and pub-goers (refs A-C) might
hamper the party's electoral prospects. Instead, the region tilted
heavily towards the BJP, which took all four coastal districts and
all three of Bangalore's urban constituencies.


10. (U) Perhaps more impressive than BJP's one-seat increase are the
gains the party made in the popular vote, winning 41 percent, up
from 34 percent in 2004 (and up from the 34 percent of the popular
vote it received in the state assembly elections in May 2008).
Bucking the national trend, the BJP's unabashed pro-Hindu tendencies
reaped electoral dividends throughout the state. In the Dakshin
Kannada district (containing the city of Mangalore, which witnessed
episodic outbreaks of Hindu extremist violence in the past year),
for example, BJP rookie Nalin Kumar Kateel defeated Congress veteran
Janardhana Poojary by 40,000 votes (or about five percent of the
votes cast). In Bangalore, South India's most cosmopolitan city,
the BJP's candidates handily took all three of the urban districts
by margins of approximately four to six percent of votes cast.


11. (U) The Congress Party managed to increase its share of the
popular vote to 38 percent, up from 36 percent in 2004, but won only
six seats, down from eight in the previous elections. The regional
Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) took the state's other three seats
(including one for former Prime Minister H.D. Devegowda),but saw
its share of the popular vote decline from 20 percent in 2004 to 13
percent this time.

Kerala's Communists routed
--------------


12. (U) Kerala's voters maintained their typical pattern of throwing
out incumbents, handing the Communists a major setback in the state.
In the previous Lok Sabha election in 2004, the Communist-led Left
Front won 18 of the state's 20 seats. This time, it mustered only 4
seats, while Congress and its allies took 16.


13. (U) In a much-anticipated race in the state's capital of
Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum),former UN Under-Secretary General
Shashi Tharoor, a debutant in electoral politics who contested as a
Congress candidate, won impressively, apparently surprising even
himself. On counting day, Tharoor told the press that he expected
to eke out a narrow victory, but he went on to win nearly 100,000
more votes more than his nearest rival, beating him by nearly six
percent of the votes cast.


14. (U) Tharoor's high-profile candidacy had attracted much national
attention, as Leftist parties mounted a vigorous campaign against

CHENNAI 00000163 003 OF 003


him, castigating him as an "American agent" and a "Zionist" for
alleged pro-Israel sentiments in his writings. Tharoor, who was
thrust into the fray by the Congress Party's leadership, also faced
disgruntled local Congress workers in Thiruvananthapuram who
initially resisted his carpet-bagging candidacy (he was born in
London and lived almost all of his life outside of India, although
his family's roots are in Kerala). Tharoor's limited local language
capability was yet another handicap, but he managed to overcome this
disability with a spirited campaign.

KAPLAN