The setback suffered by the LeftDemocratic Front (LDF) in Kerala in the 2009 Lok Sabha election was not a new phenomenon in state politics. But an enquiry into the outcome of the Lok Sabha election in Kerala raises many questions about the performance of the LDF government. The first to be raised while studying the 2009 Lok Sabha elections concerns the performance of the LDF during the last three years. The LDF’s rule since 2009 has been marked with several bitter controversies. It failed to address many promises it offered during the 2006 state election. The LDF was keen to bring reforms in education which set in motion a fight with the religious minorities. This greatly damaged the prospects of the LDF government in the 2009 election. Some new patterns of political pref-erences were noticed, especially among the urban and rural areas in Kerala. In all probability, the performance of the state government mattered much more than that of the central government. It was something similar to the case of the Lok Sabha election outcome in 2004 when the United Democratic Front (UDF) was defeated convincingly by the LDF. Anoth-er notable outcome of the election was the complete rout of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its relatively stronghold areas such as Kasaragod, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram. Between the two alliances, the LDF was beset with many internal problems while the UDF led by the Congress was more or less free from any factional rifts and hence it was able to fight the election unitedly focusing its attention on the LDF government’s perceived unpopular policies.
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